


Quantum Dioscuri

by theywerefireworks (Theywerefireworks)



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Aichmophobia, Blood and Gore, Facial Shaving, Gore, Hive Mind, Incest, Interdimensional Stans AU, M/M, Minor Character Death, Partial Mind Control, Sibling Incest, Twincest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-04-21 01:33:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 49,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4809869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theywerefireworks/pseuds/theywerefireworks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stanley and Stanford Pines are nothing short of weird, but that weirdness fits right in with Gravity Falls. However, when their great niece and nephew unexpectedly come into their custody, they realize their big major secrets may come into the light, and cause more danger - and adventure - than Mabel and Dipper bargained for!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> What if both Stan and Ford fell into the portal that night in 1982? 
> 
> A fanfic to go along with Stan-O-Wars Interdimensional Stans AU on tumblr! This will be Stancesty, it's pretty integral to the AU, so while not outrightly stated right away, it's certainly there and very implied. This is a fun AU to think about because of how much there is to work with an all the crazy stuff that can happen in it!

Everyone knows everyone in Gravity Falls, Oregon. The sleepy little lumberjack town was sparsely populated, completely isolated and, if you asked a certain resident, also geographically perfect. Things didn’t change much, time moved slowly, and when a new face showed appeared it stuck out like a big, sore, city-slicker thumb. Just one thing really set Gravity Falls apart from all the other back country cities out there and that was that weird things always seemed to happen there. And some of the the weirdest residents of the weirdest place in everyone’s book were the Pines Twins that lived in the house up on the hill in the middle of the woods.

The strangest part about them was that they weren’t an isolated pair; they came to town often, chatted with the locals, shopped the grocer and went to the Greasy Diner at least once a week. But that didn’t stop their uncanny air; if anything it enhanced it. Truth be told, the boys stuck out in their own way and were living local legends in the eyes of most. Stanley, with his eye patch and scars, whose story always changed when asked how he got them. Stanford, a 6-fingered polydactyly with a genius IQ. To top it all off, their house was half a whack-o tourist trap, half an inventor’s science lab, with a little space in between for something resembling living quarters. Stan ran the tourist trap and a museum with so many weird creatures and body parts, almost everyone debated on if they were real or not. Stanford - who always insisted on ‘Ford’ for ease of everyone - would chat endlessly about his newest invention if asked but hell if you ever saw it show up in the lumberjack town once (though if you ask him, the Owl Trowel has his name written all over it).

But if the truth wasn’t strange enough, the fiction and tall tales surrounding the boys were even stranger. The rumors varied from one story to the next depending on which old local you chatted with, but there was an underlying theme to all of them; around 36 years ago, Stanford Pines showed up - still a strapping young man - built himself a house in the woods, and holed himself up for half a decade working on all sorts of “weird science”. He came to town still, but around 1982 he just… up and vanished without a trace. Nobody saw him leave, and his car still sat outside, as if he had never left. Kids checked the house out, looking to loot or looking for evidence of a terrible crime, but nothing was ever found and they all just left with the same face - the face of someone who had seen a ghost. So people just blamed the science on his disappearance, blamed the science for the eerie atmosphere that pervaded the building, as if the house itself was alive and breathing in it’s owner’s absence.

Even weirder is that as the story goes, around 15 years later, he just reappears again, as if he never left. For 15 years, a man written off as dead just sprang back to life, and this time he wasn’t alone. Stanley showed up with him, already sporting an eyepatch and scar through his good eyebrow, but for all his brother’s privacy, Stan was loud, charismatic and utterly infectious. He fell in love with the town and decided to settle in with his brother, taking advantage of the legends around him and his twin to spring up his tourist shop, “The Mystery Shack”, which proved lucrative enough to keep them both comfortable for the next 15 years and counting. They were a part of the life blood of the town, and for all their secrets, they were both well-received and many don’t remember a time when those old Jersey natives weren’t a part of what made Gravity Falls such an interesting place to live. And the Stan Twins, well, they were confident in their ability to say they had the whole of Gravity Falls figured out and often joked there wasn’t a mystery left out there that they hadn’t uncovered.

Little did the boys know that the biggest game changer of all wasn’t what lay inside Gravity Falls, but what was quickly making it’s way towards that remote, forgotten blip on the map.

It was the first Monday morning of the summer when Stan heard the knock on the front door. He was sitting in his living room, watching the public access TV in his white cut off, sweatpants, and slippers when he looked up, frowning. It was too early for the mail and they hardly got off-hour visitors, so his mind immediately jumped to ‘stupid tourists’. He rolled his eyes and sighed, going back to the TV; they’d figure out what the “CLOSED” sign on the door meant eventually. Mondays were his off days; they could come back tomorrow. He was just getting into the latest news story about rampaging bears when another knock rapped against the front door, harder and more urgent than the first. He itched under his eye patch and he stood up, grumbling.

“Alright, alright, keep your pants on, I’m coming,” he said, cracking his back. He trudged through the living room and into the foyer of the house, raising his eyebrow at the two shadows on the other side of the door’s window. To his left, Ford descended the stairs, staring at the door, perplexed.

“Hmmm, weird, you never give tours on Mondays,” he said absently, and Stan just waved him off as his brother walked to the kitchen to get himself breakfast.

“Prolly just some stupid kids trying to stick their noses where they don’t belong,” he retorted, and winced as another knock met his ears. He unlocked the door and turned the knob, pulling it open grumpily.

“Sorry, we’re closed on -” Stan began, but he trailed off as he stared at the two women standing in front of him. They were both dressed sharply, their suit and pants pressed without a wrinkle. They were both shorter than Stan; the one had dark hair and glasses and a soft face, the other long blonde hair pulled back and sporting a bored look. He straightened up and raised his eyebrows.

“What, are you here to inspect the place? I already told the last guy, we aren’t due for one for at least another year.”

“I assure you we aren’t here for any inspections, Mr. Pines,” the blonde stated simply. She frowned as she looked him up and down, her eyes straying on the scars visible on his shoulders. After that, she gave her assistant a glance and they nodded, moving aside. As they moved, two more people - considerably smaller than even the two small women - came into view. A boy and a girl, no older than middle school age, stood there, looking awkward and out of place. They both had thick, brown hair - the boy’s mostly covered by a ratty-looking hat -, brown eyes, and what looked to be the exact same nose. The girl was wearing a sweater and skirt; the boy, a t-shirt, shorts, and a vest. Aside from that, they were so similar you would have sworn they were…

As Stan stared the girl’s eyes skirted across his face before shyly looking away. Her hand darted out to grab the boy’s wrist and instead of pulling away, he moved his hand into hers. Neither of them met Stan’s face, so he looked back to the women for answers. Before he could say anything though, he felt movement behind him.

“Hello ladies, what can we do for you this morning?” Ford had finally arrived to join the party at the front door, taking a sip of his coffee as he did so. Such an innocuous motion caused quite a stir to the strangers outside, as both of the women’s eyes went wide. The boy had looked up to see who the new voice belonged to and his jaw dropped before elbowing the girl - his sister? - in the side. She looked up and squeaked, causing everyone to turn to her. Her cheeks flushed a deep red and she quickly looked away heavily embarrassed. Stan could only raise an eyebrow in the direction of Ford, who blinked mildly before letting out a laugh.

“Yeah, I get those reactions a lot,” he said and lifted his other hand into view, waving the 6 fingers there. “Makes for great party tricks.” The girl just blushed deeper at that, flicking her eyes up and between the two brothers whenever she thought she wouldn’t get caught doing so. The boy looked up but never looked away, resolutely keeping his gaze on the Stans. The blonde cleared her throat, and they all turned to her.

“We’re sorry to bother you gentlemen so early in the morning, but we have been informed that this is the residence of the twins Stanford and Stanley Pines.” Ford frowned slightly and Stan felt his fist close reflexively.

“Yes, that’s correct. Is something the matter?”

“Well, the matter happens to lie with these two,” the one with the glasses said, motioning to the two children behind her. “Last month, the son of your brother, Sherman Pines, and his wife perished in a car crash just outside of Piedmont, CA. The late Mr. and Mrs. Pines are survived by their children, Mabel and -”

“Dipper,” the boy interrupted loudly. Stan and Ford raised their eyebrows at him.

“- _Dipper_ Pines,” the lady finished kindly, while the other just rolled her eyes, grumbling. “In their standing will, the parents asked for the children to fall into the custody of their next-of-kin. After an extensive search… we’ve concluded that you’re it.”

“What?” both of them said at the same time. It was Ford who recovered first, clearing his throat as the two women frowned.

“I- um, this is a bit of a shock. We didn’t even think our family - well, we were never really very… is there _really_ no one else?” Stan caught the look on Mabel’s face when Ford said that last bit and debated kicking his brother in the shin.

“Believe us, we looked. However, it appears nobody else in the Pines family is alive or capable of caring for two children. It was hard enough finding you two; since you went off the grid for most of the 80’s and 90’s, and you hadn’t spoken to you family years before that, anyone who knew you both considered you dead. Imagine our surprise when your names showed up in this sleepy Oregon town.”

Stan swallowed and his eye flicked to Ford. His brother was gripping his cup of coffee a little too tightly, and Stan could see his brain working, probably thinking of how they could have showed up at all, and how to tighten security around the house. Eventually, Ford took a breath and looked the guests in the eye again, a small smile on his face.

“Would you all like to come in for breakfast?”

 

 

* * *

 

Stan poured over the papers scattered across their kitchen table. The skin under his patch was starting to itch again but he did his best to ignore it; there were more important matters at hand that deserved his attention. Like the mountain of shit that had just landed on their front porch in the form of two small kids that morning, for one thing. Breakfast was long over, the dishes set aside so that contracts and paperwork could be brought up and looked over. His eye swam at all the text in front of him and he rubbed his one good socket, looking away from the sea of tiny text and images in front of him. Instead, he turned his head to peer into the living room, where the twins sat watching the television. Stan could see from there that they were watching _Ducktective_ and he absently wondered which episode they were on. In his ear, he listened to Ford conversing with the two female social workers. The one with the glasses - Claire - was talking now, keeping her voice light and positive.

“We’re sorry about having no warning on this. It happened very suddenly and the last few weeks have been a flurry of funeral arrangements, expenses, hunting for living family members to notify… we didn’t know you two even _existed_ until just a few days ago; if we did we would have notified you much sooner.”

“So we are the last resort before… foster care, I would assume? Adoption?” Ford was doing most of the talking; he excelled at more sensitive matters and conversations. Where Stan was more direct, his brother was more discreet, treating things with the brevity they deserved. It was better that way; negotiations were boring sort of work to Stan, so instead he just kept his mouth shut and listened, his eyes on the twins while they talked. They were both curled up into his armchair, engrossed in the current cartoon. Dipper sat with his arm around his sister and she looked ahead, hugging her knees.

“Yes. As it stands, no other living family members can be located. You two were hard enough to track down, so we won’t be looking any further. If you two decide not to take them into custody, they will go with us and be placed into a foster program.” Stan sighed next to them, wiping a hand over his chin.  

Twins. It just had to be motherfucking _twins._

“How old are they?” Ford inquired.

“12; they’ll be 13 on Aug 31st. Mabel is older by 10 minutes, if the birth records are accurate.”

“Any reason the boy prefers “Dipper” to his real name?” Stan asked offhandedly. “What even is it, anyway?” He looked across the table and the blonde officer - Elizabeth, he thinks her name was - just shrugged her shoulders.

“You’d have to ask him that question, Mr. Pines. Apparently, it’s a fairly personal issue. He spent the entire drive here convincing me to call him by his preferred nickname.” Stan watched as Claire handed Ford a large manilla envelope, fat with documents. Ford flipped through it absently as the girls continued talking, handing it off to Stan when he was finished. Stan took it, opening it up himself.

Inside were a multitude of images, newspaper clippings, documents, and lists. The pictures included old polaroids of parents holding their two kids up for birthdays, going on vacations to the beach, fishing… Stan swallowed thickly and moved the photos to see paper headlines about a fiery car crash where the daughter was pulled out but the parents didn’t survive being life-flighted to the hospital, obituary clippings… he pulled out a page that was colorful and in crayon reading “Mabel’s Likes: Dislikes” and a list of about 20 different things on each side.

He closed the book and rubbed his eye again. He was too tired for this, too tired to really listen to the women droning on about legal matters that he cared so little about. Not when these two small lives were hanging in the balance, two kids who were probably dealing with having their world shattered and here they were, discussing things like taxes and state mandates and legal guardian status. There was only one real important question he was hunting for, and when he finally heard it, he zeroed in on it like a predator to its prey.

“We know it’s a lot to bring on you at once,” Claire said gently. “We have their possessions ready in storage, but they can be brought up at any time. As for you two, we’re giving you a week to decide, get all of your ducks in a row. We’ll be staying at the local motel while you decide if you’d like to fully adopt or -”

“We’ll do it,” Stan said gruffly. Somewhere next to him, Ford made a strangled noise. Stan hardly paid attention to his brother and fixed Elizabeth and Claire with an unwavering stare. Though they both were surprised by his quick statement, Elizabeth wasted no time staring him down, her frown deepening.

“Are you absolutely sure? This is a huge commitment. There’s a large financial and personal burden in caring for one child alone, but _two_? This is twins we’re talking about here, Mr. Pines. We don’t want you to take this situation lightly or get the wrong -”

“I said we’ll do it,” he growled out, cutting her off. She blinked and glared at the interruption but closed her mouth anyway. The two shot daggers at each other while Claire laughed nervously, motioning to Ford.

“Sure you don’t want to ask him for his opinion first?” she said lightly. Stan just gave her a blank look before leaning back in his chair, arm slinging over the back of it casually as he twisted to look at Ford, who was standing to his right.

“Sure thing. Ford?”

Ford appeared on the verge of clocking his brother in the face and Stan fought the grin that pulled at the corner of his lips. He raised an eyebrow at his older brother as Ford let out a breath, straightening. He cleaned his glasses before putting them back on and turning to the girls.

“Would you two mind if I had a word with my brother? _Privately?”_ The emphasis on the last word caused Stan’s brow to furrow.

“Of course not,” Claire responded. Ford gave them a curt nod in acknowledgement before grabbing Stan’s arm and pulling him from the chair and out of the kitchen. From there, he glanced into the living room and crossed the foyer, heading up the stairs. Stan trailed behind, but as soon as they both reached the top Ford wheeled on him, pointing a finger straight into Stan’s solar plexus.

 _“What the hell do you think you are doing?”_ he hissed between his teeth. Stan blinked at him.

“Taking on the kids! Did I- did I not make that clear?”

“Oh you made it _crystal clear_ , Stanley, but will you stop and think about this before jumping to conclusions for once in your life? We are not in a position to be looking after children, let alone twins! Our business alone is shady enough, not to mention our very relationship is considered _far_ from kosher in this dimens-”

Stan shushed him at that, waving his hands as his brother’s voice carried dangerously. Ford closed his mouth and they both peeked over the landing, listening carefully. Thankfully, nobody was snooping on their conversation, and any noise was drowned out by the quacking coming from the television. Ford turned back to Stan, his glare still in place as he lowered his voice even more.

 _“Regardless,_ this is a risky undertaking. Having employees around regularly is bad enough, but it’s the summer, Stan, they are kids and they won’t have school or jobs, they’ll be here 24/7, poking around, getting into things, sneaking around the lab -”

“They won’t get into trouble.” Stan dismissed his brother with a wave of his hand. “And besides, we make plenty of money to support two kids, we have a fairly lucrative business going on - “

“-And I’m very aware of all the dangers involved with said business - “ Ford snarled, but Stan just kept right on going.

“- the house is _definitely_ big enough to keep them happy, though they may have to share the attic for a while, they’ll love the townspeople, they will have kids their age to make friends with -”

“ _Stanley -_ ” Ford whined, rubbing his temple.

“Oh, _what?_ What would you rather propose we do, huh? Let them be homeless for a while, let them be with total and complete strangers -”

“We’re strangers to them, Stanley!”

“Ugh, you’re missing the _point,_ Poindexter! Look at them! They’re twins and they’re family and like hell am I going to sit here and watch them go through what we did at such a young age.” Ford groaned out a sigh and looked down at that. He pushed his hand up under his glasses, covering his eyes. When he looked back up, his eyes drifted down the staircase towards the living room entrance at the bottom.

“Stan.. we - we don’t even _know_ them. They don’t know us. So many things could go wrong, what if they don’t even like us?” Stan laughed at that and threw his arms out wide.

“Are you kiddin’? A conman bruiser with one eye and a nerdy science inventor? And then there’s all the fun ‘side work’...” his eyebrows wiggled and Ford groaned.

“They are _not_ to know about that, Stan. For the sake of their safety, okay?

“But-”

“Do you want them hurt?”

“They wouldn’t get hurt.”

“You don’t know that. Besides, look at you; you’re a walking-talking example of how dangerous our line of work is!” Stan frowned, scratching at the scar that bisected his good eyebrow.

“Okay, yeah, you got a point there. Fine. Here’s the deal. We take them in; adopt them. But under the condition that the business stays a secret and hidden for their safety’s sake. Sound good?” Ford crossed his arms, chewing at his cheek. When he didn’t respond, Stan nudged him, grabbing his attention.

“Sound good, Sixer?” he said, repeating the question. Ford grumbled and turned to him, rubbing his temple.

“Fine-fine! We’ll...we’ll take in the kids. But no funny business around them, not even with me! Especially not with me- ya got it?” Stan grinned and held his hands up.

“I’ll keep it behind closed doors if you do.” Ford nodded resolutely and Stan’s face brightened like the break of dawn. He clapped his hands together happily.

“Great! Now let’s go tell our happy guests the good news.” Ford mumbled his discontent and Stan pushed him down the stairs and back into the kitchen. Ford tried protesting against his stronger brother but decided against it as they entered back into the kitchen. The social workers looked up from their paperwork and cut off their idle chat. From behind him, Ford could practically feel the grin on Stan’s face as he adopted his best, most gleeful tour guide voice.

“Ladies and…Ladies! Behold! The incredible 12-fingered man has an announcement to make!” Ford couldn’t stop the angry flush that rose to his face as Stan grinned like a hyena over his shoulder. The girls stared expectantly at Ford, waiting for him to respond. Ford simply rolled his eyes and sighed, resigned to his fate.

“We’ll… keep the kids. We’ll adopt them,” He groaned out, fearing how much he was going to regret those words later. Stan cheered silently behind him, jumping in the air. Elizabeth simply nodded while Claire beamed beside her, her cheeks pink.

“Great! We’ll let you fill out the paperwork right away and get all their belongings sent up to the house!”

“Just a reminder though,” Elizabeth piped up, causing Stan to stop playfully pushing his brother and both of them to look at her. “We will be coming up to make routine visits. We need to check every now and then to make sure everything is going fine, and that the kids are adjusting well. You know, simple things, like looking over the place, checking on the emotional and physical health of the kids, making sure you guys are truly fit for the responsibility of taking care of two extra lives. If we find you aren’t doing that job or we suspect you might be abusing the kids then…”

“We would never!” Stan barked, but he calmed down when Ford shot him a glance. Elizabeth glared at him but continued.

“-then they’ll come back with us and return to our custody.”

“But it’s only for the first 6 months!” Claire added encouragingly.  “After that, you’re basically home free!”

Ford felt the sweat bead on his face and he side-eyed Stan. Stan, for all his swagger, didn’t miss a beat as he laughed off his earlier angry outburst.

“You bet! You’ll see; we’ll be the best great-uncles - no, GRUNKLES! - a pair of twins could ask for!” Elizabeth nodded,d looking them hard in the face.

“That’s good, because if not, we’ll definitely know - and there will be consequences to pay.”

Stan just nodded and kept on grinning. He grinned through the paperwork, the contracts, the signings, the legal documents. The whole time though, he kept a hand planted on his brother’s shoulder, squeezing his grip tight every now and then. He couldn’t see it, since Ford was on his blind side, but he could feel him look over at him, every now and then. No matter what though, he kept that smile plastered to his face, made sure it reached his eyes and the rest of him, until finally, what felt like hours later of chatting and negotiating, the workers took their leave out the front door. The twins stood there and waved them off, Stan clamping his free hand even tighter to Ford’s shoulder. Ford didn’t need to glance at it to know it would probably bruise a bit come morning.

It wasn’t until the two were completely out of sight down the hill that Stan’s wiped the grin from his face and completely dropped his jovial attitude. He took a deep breath and looked to Ford, the panic rising his stomach. He could see the feeling was mirrored in his own face, and he swallowed hard before letting out a nervous laugh.

“We are _so_ fucked.”


	2. Chapter 2

_Ducktective_ was a good show, Mabel decided to herself.

It had everything she loved and nothing she didn’t. There were silly pun jokes - and really, who doesn’t like a good pun joke? People with no humor, that’s who - silly talking animals in Sherlock Holmes hats, silly prop gags, silly mysteries. She especially liked the silly mysteries because she knew Dipper would like the silly mysteries, and if she could enjoy the show with him, well, all the better. But if she was honest with herself, the biggest reason she liked the show wasn’t because it was silly or funny or had a talking duck. It was because no show like this existed back home in Piedmont. There was no way for her to connect anything about it back to the life she once had in the city she once lived in with the parents that weren’t -

Nope.

Her brain was going places it shouldn’t and it needed to stop. Right. Now. She wouldn’t let herself think about that, not while she was watching a show about a duck quacking it’s way through a mystery show. She wouldn’t think about the one thing that’s been on her mind for one too many days. _Ducktective_ was more important. She was tired of thinking about sad things. She’d think about sad things later. She’d think about sad things when there wasn’t funny, light-hearted things sitting right in front of her.

“Was it an accident, Constable -” The duck quacked out on screen, “ - or MURDER?” Mabel gasped at the overly dramatized sound and her eyes went wide.

“That duck is a _genius,_ ” she said, her voice hushed in awe. Next to her in the chair, her brother scoffed.

“Yeah right, you’re just too easily impressed,” he said. “I could have figured that out.” He sounded bored with the show but Mabel knew better. He was giving the show his full attention, hardly looking away. If he was really bored, he’d be flipping through channels for something better to watch. Mabel smirked at that, her braces glinting in the light from the tv.

“Oh yeah, smart guy? Who do you think did it, then?” He rolled his eyes at her, resting his head in his hand, leaning against the armrest.

“Hmmm, there’s not enough evidence for it yet, but I suspect the old lady’s butler did it.”

“Whaat? Where’s the motive? Clearly it’s the old lady herself. I suspect she has a _terrible history_ with the guy where he’s a jilted ex-lover who cheated on her for revenge. So she killed him, getting back at him once and for all.”

“Seems a little drastic,” Dipper replied, brow furrowing. Mabel just rolled her eyes and waved him off, sighing deeply.

“Oh Dipper, what little you know. Word of advice bro-bro; don’t cross a woman with a grudge and connections.”

His frown deepened and he opened his mouth to retaliate, but the words never left him as they both got distracted by voices in the hallway. They turned to look in the direction of the foyer as the adults emerged from the kitchen, still clearly engaged in conversation. The two men who were supposedly their great uncles were ushering out the two women social workers, all four of them speaking jovially as they exited through the front door. Their conversation cut off abruptly as the door closed behind them and Mabel quickly exchanged a look with her brother.

“Wonder what they’re talking about,” she mused aloud, but she didn’t need to be a talking duck to figure out that mystery. Dipper spared no time in confirming what they already knew.

“Us.”

Mabel scowled at that and fidgeted in the chair. _Us,_ she thought. Her and her brother. That was the only thing anyone wanted to talk about as of late; what to do with them, where to put them, who should have them… as if they were lost toys and they were looking for the perfect shelf to place them on. Not many questions had been asked directly to them of course; nobody seemed to take their interests into account, and instead ferryed them here and there and everywhere, trying to decide their futures for them. And honestly, Mabel was getting tired of it. She knew Dipper was too; they had had more than one argument on the way to this middle-of-nowhere town miles and miles away from their home. She wondered if and when that would ever change, if they would ever find some adults who didn’t try and control their lives for them. Their parents never did; they let their kids decide who they wanted to be and maybe they were the exception to the rule. Maybe everyone else in the world just didn’t see them as people and instead they were just dolls that needed to be nurtured and kept in a box and maybe these supposed “ _great uncles_ ” were no different and maybe they wouldn’t care one bit what her or her brother thought about or felt or…

She scowled, hugging her knees. She was getting ahead of herself. She wasn’t always this negative, this antsy, especially not about other people. She stared down at her feet, trying not to be angry at the world. It was a horrible feeling and it ate her up like a bunch of gross worms on the inside. She played with her feet, wishing all the world that she hadn’t been stupid enough to forget her needles or her crayons or her glue gun. She loved them because having _something_ to do and occupy her time always helped her feel better, lighter. And she didn’t have any of those things here and she could feel the anxiety creeping in on her around every corner. Instead she did the next best thing; she reached out and grabbed Dipper’s hand. He took it reflexively; he never asked questions or cared that she held onto him so much. Especially lately; all they had were each other. He tugged her close, squeezed her fingers reassuredly, a silent affirmation that he wasn’t going to leave; he wasn’t going anywhere. The contact itself was enough to keep her grounded in the here-and-now and she calmed down, letting out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding in.

Voices could be heard again and they both watched the door expectantly. They were both male voices and no female ones; Mabel wondered if that meant the social workers were _finally_ gone, but if that was good or bad, she wasn’t sure yet. Relatives or not, she didn’t know these two men, and come on, that one guy had an eyepatch; what was up with that? Was he like, a pirate or something? Did those even exist anymore?

The voices grew louder and they both leaned over the chair, curiosity getting the better of them. Eventually the door opened and the men came inside, talking to each other.

“-doesn’t matter, Stan, the house shouldn’t have shown up at _all_ outside of city limits and we shouldn’t have either. Probably an error in my calibrations but -”

“ - or maybe a record or something slipped out and dropped. I hardly doubt it got far but it could spell trouble if -”

Their conversation halted dramatically as they both walked into the living room and caught sight of the kids staring at them. An awkward silence settled as nobody really said anything as the two pairs did nothing but meet each other's gaze. From the television, a harpsichord played a few notes while a duck quacked.

“…Ah, so.” It was the one without an eyepatch that recovered first. It was a dumb statement and nobody really responded, other than to turn to look at him in particular. The extra attention made him awkwardly flustered, and he said nothing else. Mabel took that time to size up her two uncles, comparing them now that they were directly in front of her.

She could definitely tell that they were identical twins; outside of their glaringly obvious physical differences, of course. Heck, if they didn’t dress and style their hair differently, they would have almost been impossible to tell apart. It did help though that one was wearing an eyepatch and the other had six fingers on each hand. Eyepatch was also a bit greyer and heavier-set than his brother, who was slimmer and had longer longer hair that, while wasn’t as light as his brothers, was just about as grey. Both of them had the same square jaw, the same nose, the same height; yes, Mabel was very thankful for their apparent differences, because otherwise she’d never be able to tell them apart. Her eyes flicked from the eyepatch to the six-fingered hand. She found herself really wanting to touch and hold those fingers - and the nail-painting opportunities! Two extra fingers meant two extra color options and goodness if he ever let her give him a makeover there’d be so many more styles to choose from! She flushed and tried to push those silly ideas aside; not many men were open to the idea of nail polish and makeovers.

Eyepatch coughed and nudged his brother. Six Fingers just gave him a glare before walking up to the chair and getting down on the level they twins were at. He adjusted his glasses, bringing out a hand to shake. Mabel figured it would be rude to greet him sitting down, so she stood up from the chair and took his hand in hers. He smiled kindly at that, and shook it gently.

“Well, I’m guessing you guys are happy to have those two out of your hair. My name is Stanford - but please, just call me Ford.” Mabel grinned happily down at his hand as he shook hers, her eyes wide. It was a larger grip, to be sure - warm and inviting and a little rough around the edges but not at all alien or terrifying despite the extra digit.

“Wow, it’s like a full finger friendlier than normal,” she breathed out, entranced. She held his hand in her palm, turning it over. He chuckled at the contact and grinned wider at her enthusiasm.

“Oh yes, I like you a lot already. You two are Mabel and Dipper, correct?”

“Yeah, that’s us,” Dipper said, getting up from the chair himself to also shake Ford’s hand. Behind Ford, a throat cleared, and they all looked up to see Eyepatch scowling at them.

“Jeez, Sixer, ya gonna hog all the introductions?” He walked over, uncrossing his arms to hold a hand out to the kids. Mabel noted he definitely had the normal amount of fingers, but when she took his hand, she noticed that his grip was stronger, rougher, and a bit wilder.

“Name’s Stan - Stanley Pines.” He pointed to his face. “Ya can’t see it, but I’m winking under the eyepatch.”

Mabel giggled at that, grinning wider. These uncles of her were proving to be a lot less boring than she first anticipated. After all the droll conversations she’d had to sit through for the last few weeks, this was a breath of fresh air. She turned to look at Dipper, who gave her a reassuring smile. Egged on by that, she turned back to Stan, all shyness escaping her.

“How can you wink if you don’t have an eye under there?” She asked skeptically, squinting at him. His grin went wide; his smile was huge and toothy and Mabel loved it.

“Oh but I do, ya wanna see it?” Next to him, Mabel saw Ford blanch.

“Stan I don’t think that’s the best idea to show - “

“DO I EVER!” Mabel blurted out excitedly. This only seemed to make Stan grin more, if that was even possible, and he threw back his head for a good laugh. Ford just hid his face in his palm and Dipper said something about how gross this was, as if he wasn’t also curious about what was under there too. As Stan brought his face down closer to hers, she leaned in, excited to be in on such a secret. When he pulled the eyepatch up, she couldn’t help the squeal that escaped her.

Stan’s eye socket - for lack of better terms - was a wrecked, scarred mess. Long lines extended from the socket where a white, glazed eye looked out blindly. All color in his iris had long since left, the edges of his sclera stained a permanent light red. Her hands moved up to her mouth and from behind her fingers she whispered, “What happened to it?” Stan winked the destroyed eye at that. Behind him, Ford crossed his arms and rolled his eyes.

“A star fell right in my eye. Didn’t know it at the time of course; I was so captivated by its beauty that I couldn’t help but stare. Sure was a pretty thing to see as the last bit of sight in this eye, I’ll tell ya.” She breathed in a gasp as he smiled and pulled the patch back in its place.

“It’s so beautiful,” she said softly, her eyes shining. Behind her, Dipper made a noise of disgust, as if the story was more gross than the eye itself. Stan straightened back up, a smug smile on his face as he turned to Ford, hands on his hips. As for Ford… Mabel frowned and watched him. He had the strangest look on his face right now, but she couldn’t place what it was. Anger? Disbelief? Annoyance? It was such a fleeting thing that when she blinked and looked back it was gone, leaving her to wonder if she had seen it at all. She set the observation aside in her brain for now and instead put her focus back on her brother.

“Okay Dipper, I’m pretty sure these are the _coolest_ great uncles in the entire universe.” He shifted in response to that, uneasy. She knew he agreed with her though; how could he not? These were _literally_ the coolest people she had ever met - _ever._ But he seemed unsure and scratched at his hair from under his hat.

“Is-is, uh, I mean - are you going to adopt us, or whatever?” Mabel looked back at the Stans, watching as they exchanged a worried glance. Stan gave Ford the barest of nods and he took a deep breath before planting the most reassuring smile he could on his face.

“Well, we were uh, planning on asking you guys if you _wanted_ to be adopted by us. We’d personally love to and we’re prepared to, but we also don’t know you, you don’t know us, so we figured it’d be worth it to spend the day together, all four of us just…getting to know each other.”

Dipper’s eyes widened and glanced between the brothers. “You.. you’re letting _us_ decide?” Mabel definitely shared his sentiment; after weeks of having every decision made for them, she was shocked to hear this come out of the mouth of her great uncle. Stan just shrugged, as if this was the most obvious thing in the whole world.

“Look kiddos, we’d take you in a heartbeat ‘cause you’re the only family we have left and what happened to you is completely unfair. But it’s- it’s your life. And sometimes in life, ya gotta make mistakes to survive and sometimes the right decisions are the ones you have to find yourself, not have told to you by someone else. So you can spend the day with us and you can see if this is really what you want to do. Because if you _do_ wanna be adopted by us, just remember you gotta deal with us until you’re at least 18. Which- which may or may not be a bad thing, depending, heh.”

Both men stood in front of them, all smiles and encouragement. Mabel couldn’t look at them for too long without feeling the tears well up in her eyes. When she turned to Dipper, she wasn’t surprised to see him staring at the floor, the brim of his hat covering his face. She chewed her bottom lip; she knew what was on his mind because it was the same thing on hers. Nobody but nobody had treated them like this since well… since their parents. Their parents had always been open about the twins making their own decisions, living their own lives, and not allowing outside opinions dissuade them. They encouraged the twins to be themselves, no matter what, but ever since the accident, no adult had treated them like individuals. Instead, they all had wanted them to be quiet, to behave, to not cause a stir. Now, these two old men were here, telling them everything that they wanted to hear, as if it was the most logical thing to say to two homeless, orphaned 12 year olds.

 _Maybe it’s Pines thing_ , she thought. _Maybe we really are related to these crazy men after all._

After a beat, Ford shifted, awkward in the twin’s silence. He scratched at his unshaven stubble, doing his best to sound like he wasn’t completely clueless about talking to kids.

“If you guys aren’t interested at all, we can call the social workers back, it’s not a big-”

“No, no it’s fine, it sounds fine,” Dipper suddenly blurted out. Mabel picked up on the cue and nodded vigorously, backing up her brother’s words. “One day, and then we’ll decide what we want to do.” Ford smiled and relaxed considerably at that.

“We have a deal then?”  Dipper just nodded in agreement.

“Yeah,” he said, voice scratchy. “We have a deal.”

Dipper reached out, and Ford grabbed his hand, shaking on it. Mabel was beyond happy and threw her hand into the pile as well, grinning like a maniac. It wasn’t long before Stan pushed down on all their hands as well, causing everyone to stumble.

“Yeah! Alright! Pines Twins outing! Pines Pines Pines Pines!” he chanted, throwing their hands up in the air as if this was a football break. Mabel giggled as Dipper yelped, thrown off balance by his uncle’s enthusiasm. She looked around the little gathering, feeling her heart swell for the first time in what felt like ages.

It was going to be a good day, Mabel decided to herself.

* * *

As it turned out, the day went rather splendidly. The first thing the Stans did was show the twins around the house - or as they affectionately called it “The Shack” - which was easily one of the wackiest houses Mabel had ever been in. It was such a weird mix of “themed museum” and “science lab” that the two seemed to collide in the middle. Ford would point out various inventions he’d created specifically to make their life in the Shack easier, while Stan would talk about his pastime hobby of taxidermy, which led to some - if not all - of the museum’s creations. And then there was the museum itself; UFOs, crazy alien-looking bugs, lizards with ten legs, stuffed bears and bigfoots, invisible men, bats in cages, jackalopes (or was it antelabbits?), and more uncanniness than she could count.  All of it looked out of this world and when she asked about it, Stan would just shrug and answer with a vague “in the woods somewhere”. Mabel never believed him, of course, but that was kind of the point - it was all supposed to be unbelieveable. He also told them briefly of his employees - Soos the museum handyman and Wendy, the gift shop cashier. Both were off on account of the house being closed to the public, but he promised if they stuck around long enough, they’d show up eventually. He also promised them a real-live demonstration of the tour, Mabel positively lit up at the prospect.

As if the museum wasn’t enough, they also got a brief look into Ford’s personal lab. It was situated in the basement - since most of the Mystery Shack museum took up the first floor - and was about as sci-fi as any place could ever get. Cool inventions, ray guns, special light bulbs, and a prototype for a perpetual motion device were among just a few of the different things Mabel got a glimpse of before being ushered onward through the aisles. She couldn’t help but wonder what sort of crazy, sciencey things he worked on and just how dangerous they really were; there was more than one time where he reached out to grab either her or Dipper’s hand, insisting that they please don’t touch. Mabel chanced a glance at her twin; Dipper’s eyes were huge, taking everything in with awe. It was as if the entire world had just gotten a whole lot bigger in the span of just a half an hour, and Mabel could tell he was just itching to start asking every question he could think of under the sun. He did his best to keep it all to himself, but as they were leaving, it didn’t escape Mabel how he hung back, keeping in step with his great uncle Ford, sneaking in small comments about this, that, or the other. Ford savored every word, loving the attention Dipper was giving him and answering any questions with genuine cheer.

Mabel wasn’t into science herself, but man, was she ever happy to see Dipper so happy. Sometimes he was too much of a grumpy hermit crab for his own good, but now, he had another, slightly less grumpy hermit crab to talk to. And while they were busy chatting about science and smartness, Mabel herself was wasting no time gravitating towards their _other_ uncle. She couldn’t handle seeing him walk in front of everyone looking so lonely, so she stealthily snuck up on his good side and slipped a hand inside his. His palm was large and warm and she held it close, causing him to jump at the unexpected gesture. When he looked down, she beamed up at him, and he returned it with a crooked smile.

“Surprise!” she said brightly and he laughed, relaxing into her touch and pulling her close.

“Well aren’t you cheeky,” he replied back.  “I like your style, kid.”

“Thank you,” she chirped out, proudly skipping in time with his footfalls. She wasn’t sure what style he meant, but she took what she could get.

“So whaddya think so far? Are your grunkles cool, or what?”

“I think _outrageously awesome_ would be my phrase of choice for you two,” she said excitedly, prompting a laugh from Stan.

“Outrageously awesome enough to stick around with, maybe?”

Mabel opened her mouth but closed it when she thought to look back at her brother. She was ready to say _‘yes, definitely, absolutely!’_ but she wasn’t sure how he felt about the whole thing yet. She wanted to make this decision with him, not without him, and while he looked like he was enjoying himself, Dipper could also be complicated when it came to things like this.

“Hmmm, we still have half a day, and you’ve yet to feed us, so I’ll decide after you’ve proven we won’t starve to death!” She dramatically played up an act of dying from exhaustion, prompting Stan to smack his forehead, chastising himself.

“Ah crap I forgot - we forgot - HEY FORD!” he called out, doing his best to grab his brother’s attention. Ford and Dipper had their heads bent over a sophisticated-looking hologram watch but they both looked up, startled, when Stan yelled at them. When Ford caught Stan’s eye, he continued “We forgot about lunch!”

Ford mimicked his brother’s headsmack. “Greasy Diner?” he offered back. Stan gave a smile and a thumbs up.

“Greasy Diner it is!”

The Greasy Diner, as it turned out, was pretty spot-on as far as names went. It wasn’t too pretty to look at and the food wasn’t the best, but like a watering hole it drew in all the locals. Mabel couldn’t help but love every character that walked in through the door; people of all shapes, sizes and colors lived in Gravity Falls and she had an overwhelming urge to befriend each and every one of them. She could just imagine the stories everyone had hiding away, just waiting to be told.

Before long, the waitress came over, finding them easily enough even in the midday crowd. “Lazy Susan”, the Stans had called her; she had a slow, happy laugh and an even slower eyelid. Her and Stan exchanged winking jokes as Ford groaned loudly from his corner of the booth. When she saw the young twins sitting across from the Stans, an excited noise escaped her.

“Ooooh, who is this? I’ve never seen you cuties in town before!” Mabel beamed while Dipper shyly waved and smiled.

“Hi I’m Mabel and this is my brother Dipper! It’s nice to meet you; I am loving those cat earrings!” She jumped up, willing to shake hands despite the coffee pot in Susan’s hand. Lazy Susan blushed at the compliment, laughing heartily.

“Heh, yeah, they’re with us uh - visiting! For the summer. Our great niece and nephew right there,” Stan said proudly.

“How lovely, and so nice too! So tell me kids; what’ll it be? First meal’s on the house!” Dipper and Mabel were quick to exchange wide, devilish grins, finding and ordering the biggest mountain of pancakes the diner had to offer. It was too much even for the twins, so Stan and Ford made sure to share, which quickly devolved into a competitive contest on who could eat the most pancakes from the pile. Stan won, but only by one; Mabel had put on her best pancake-shoveling face and kept pace even with her grunkle. She had a sneaking suspicion she might get sick later but she didn’t care. It was one million percent worth it, just to see the looks on her family’s faces.

_Her family._

The words stuck in her brain and stayed there as soon as she thought them into existence. They drove back up to the house, the words a mantra in her skull as she looked around the individuals in the car. Her family. This was her family now, there was no getting around it. This is how life was going to be. Life would be in Oregon, not California. In the woods, not the city. With two grunkles, not…

She rested her head against the door, jostling in her seat as Stan drove over a pothole. Dipper gave her a questioning look, but she just smiled back. She wanted to talk to him about all this, but not here, not in the car. Instead, she just threw him a wink and a thumbs up. His mouth curved upward slightly, getting the message. They would talk about things later.

Later came sooner than expected; by the time they got back to the Shack, a large truck was ready and waiting, filled with Dipper and Mabel’s possessions. The truck was packed to the gills and even with all four of them working, it took the rest of the afternoon to unload it all. Almost everything was sent right up the stairs to the attic; until they grew out of it and had to move, the twins would be sharing a room up there. That was, of course, if they decided to stick around. They could always still choose to go back with the social workers, back to having questions, being tossed about like toys, their feelings disregarded. But as Mabel put away her things and set up her posters on the wall, she couldn’t help but feel like this was it. This was her new home. She stood on the mattress of her bed, admiring her decorative handiwork, reveling in the warm, woody smell of their new attic room. _This is it,_ she decided. It was the time to talk to Dipper. She took a deep breath and turned around, not even noticing he was already facing her as they both opened up their mouths to say

“I want to stay here with the Stans.”

They blinked, surprised, but then the laughter took ahold of them. Mabel bounced down into a sitting position, crossing her legs on the mattress.

“Isn’t this place just the _best?_ ” she blurted out excitedly. Dipper was pacing, a grin on his face and a hand on his forehead.

“Yeah! I mean, all of Ford’s inventions; Mabel, he figured out how to make a light bulb last a thousand years. _A thousand years!_ I can’t wait to ask him so many questions!”

“And did you see Stan’s eyeball!” Mabel added. Both were rambling unabashedly now that the dam was lifted and they had time to gush. “And those pancakes! I could eat forever and GET SO FAT!”

“And-and it’s crazy, you know? I mean, living with mom and dad was fine and all but here-”

“ - it’s like we found a place _better_ than anywhere else in the whole world and we’re TOTALLY related to them! It’s almost as if -”

“ - it just feels so _right!_ I mean really - “

“ - this place it’s -”

“ - _PERFECT.”_

They both ended their rants on the same word and the silence that followed it was electric. _Perfect._ This place was completely, irrevocably, perfect for them. After hearing them both say it out loud though, an odd sense of dread crept into Mabel’s heart. She looked at her brother, her grin gone.

“You know, it’s really weird though.”

“You mean how weird it is that this place is great, our grunkles are great, but literally _nobody_ in the family talked about them ever?” Mabel nodded and Dipper continued. “Nobody ever mentioned them! Nobody brought up their existence, showed us family photos with them in them, it’s only now that they show up in our lives, out of the blue. You know, after everyone else is…” He didn’t need to finish the sentence for Mabel to know what he was going to say, but she nodded in agreement all the same.

“It’s like everyone just got all stupid or magically forgot about them, like they were never born, or something. I mean, you’d think _someone_ would mention how we weren’t the only set of twins in the family, especially if one of them had 12 awesome fingers.”

“It’s all really weird, a little _too_ weird.” Dipper frowned, tapping his chin. Mabel watched him, her cheeks puffed out; she knew that look and she knew she’d have to step her foot down before he went any further with that train of thought.

“Oh no you don’t, Dipper. There’s no way I’m letting you start going down the rabbit hole and think our great uncles are part of some giant crazy conspiracy or something who just mysteriously dropped into our lives.”

“Well, what else would explain this, huh? Think about all we know of them, just for a second. You heard those social workers; for most of the 80s and 90s, both of them were completely off the grid. They just disappeared without a trace, like they vanished off the face of the Earth or something. I mean, they didn’t even know they were still alive until a few days ago! But aren’t they in the government? Wouldn’t they do taxes? Taxes are required every year, Mabel, they can’t not do them! I mean logically, _logically!”_

“Seriously bro-bro, slow down! You’re doing that thing you do where you think _way too hard_ on things that aren’t worth the effort! I mean sure, when they walked back in, they may have said some things about being surprised they showed up on radar, but that doesn’t mean they are into any fishy business! There’s no reason to insinuate -”

“-that our Grunkles are clearly hiding some deep dark secrets from the world? What if they’re actually lizard men from Mars, Mabel! They could be reading our minds, that’s why they seem so perfect. Oh no, that’s almost foolproof, we would never know the truth then…” He paced around more, fingers tapping to his chin.

Mabel couldn’t believe this. Her brother was talking himself into a corner and she simply could NOT let that happen. She frowned, her cheeks flushed with anger as she jumped from the bed, grabbing her brother’s arm. Without a word, she pulled him to the door and started going down the stairs.

“Ah- _hey!_ Mabel! What are you doing!?”

“Proving to you once and for all that our grunkles are fine; they aren’t part of anything creepy or scary or evil! They are just two people who happen to be _amazing_ and I won’t let your crazy theories ruin that!” He tugged his arm free and she wheeled back on him, hands in fists at her sides.

“You can’t just run up to them and ask them, you’ll never get a straight answer!”

“I can and I will, just watch me! Grunkle Stan said we needed to make our own decisions, well my decision is to confront them and see why they _really_ disappeared from our family!”

“Mabel!” But it was too late. She was already heading down the stairs, looking for one of her uncles in the process. Dipper cowered at the top of the stairs before angrily huffing, following close behind. As Mabel reached the bottom of the stairs though, she heard voices from the living room and paused before rounding the corner. She hid, shushing Dipper as he caught up. Both of them peeked around the corner, looking for their grunkles. In the gathering evening gloom, it was hard to make them out, but they were there in the living room, chatting over something on the table. Their voices were hushed, but Stan’s posture was deadly stiff. Ford’s face didn’t look good either as he sifted through screens on a small, pocket-sized device. Mabel squinted; was it a smart phone? She couldn’t tell at this distance, but she wasn’t about to sneak up on them just yet. Instead, she strained her ears, listening for anything in their conversation.

“What are they talking about?” Dipper hissed, his question mirroring hers from earlier. This time, she wasn’t sure of the answer at all and just shook her head, waving at him to shut the heck up.

“- it should just be a couple days, tops.” Finally! She caught the tail end of Ford’s sentence and leaned, getting the best angle possible for hearing. It wasn’t long before Stan responded.

“You sure? I mean, I could -” Ford put a hand up, shaking his head.

“I know what you _could_ do, but you don’t need to. If we’re gonna make this work, we gotta figure this out anyway, so might as well start now…”

“And if it’s been more than a couple days? What then? I can’t just leave them here.”

Them, Mabel was sure she heard a _them_. Which meant he was talking about her and Dipper. But what would they be leaving for? She stuck her head around further, trying to get a better hearing position. Dipper tried to pull her back, but she just waved him off again.

“Look, you’ll have the communicator, I’ll keep in contact, just check it regularly. This isn’t that dangerous of a job though, I’ll be fine.”

“Fine, my ass.” Stan grumbled out angrily.

“I can handle this, Stan.”

“Alright well, I’ll give you three days. If you aren’t back by then, well, I’ll -”

A soft _thump_ caused both of them to jerk their heads up, staring in the direction of the doorframe. Dipper hid his head as fast as he could while Mabel lifted herself up off the floor. She had leaned too far and fallen flat on her face. Her face flushed with embarrassment but since she was already outed, she wasted no time running across the room to them, despite her brother’s protests being hissed at her from the staircase.

“Kid?” Stan called out, clearly surprised. “What are you doing?”

“I could ask you the same question!” She said dramatically, pointing at Ford. He started, his eyes flicking between Stan and Mabel’s face. Stan blinked but recovered quickly.

“He’s gotta head out unexpectedly for work,” he said, looking nonplussed about the whole thing. Ford pocketed the device he had been staring at, safely storing it in the jacket he was wearing. “He travels a lot sometimes for his job, since he has to take his inventions places to sell them. Because of the distance, it can take a few days sometimes.”

“But what about the whole ‘being fine’ bit?” she asked, skeptically. Ford coughed and she rounded on him.

“You’ll have to forgive Stan; he’s stupidly protective of my well-being. Doesn’t trust me behind the wheel and other such nonsense. Even though his own driving is _abysmal…”_

“Can it,” Stan retorted, mouth twitching.

“So…you’re not… you’re not gonna get hurt?”

“No, of course not! What gave you that idea?” Ford smiled reassuringly, but Mabel still frowned, the fear that grabbed her not ebbing away easily.

“He said he was gonna come look for you after a few days. He was - he said he was gonna leave us if -”

Both of their faces looked crushed and Stan went over to her side, pulling her into a hug. She choked on a sob she didn’t know she had been holding.

“Oh, no no, Mabel, we would never leave you without telling you about it first.” he said gruffly, and Mabel wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe him, so badly.

“You promise?”

“I promise,” he said, squeezing her tighter. She buried her face in his shoulder, clinging for dear life. He was so big and warm compared to her and she just wanted to be swallowed up in that hug and never leave. She nodded into his shoulder, unable to form words. When he pulled away though, they were both there, looking over her. She wiped a tear from her eye, setting her jaw straight.

“Good, ‘cause we won’t leave you either.” Ford’s eyebrows went up into his hair and Stan stared at her.

“Really? Ya - ya mean it?”

“Yeah, she means it. We’re here to stay.”

They all turned to face Dipper, who had coyly come out of hiding to join the group. Instantly after speaking up though, he became self-conscious, rubbing his head and looking away.

“I mean, unless you don’t want us to stay, we can always head out and -” The words were cut off with a squeak as Stan went over to him in a flash and bundled him up in a giant hug, much like the one he had crushed Mabel with. Dipper quickly coughed out a statement about being choked and Stan let go, laughing. He grinned at Ford, a hand on Dipper’s shoulder. “Well, Poindexter?” Ford frowned at him.

“What, what do you want me to say? Of course I want them to stick around, ya knucklehead!” At that, all three of them rushed him, tackling him to the floor, causing a giant pile of wrestling, laughing affection.

So Grunkle Ford was leaving for a few days; that was okay, Mabel could deal with that. It was going to be okay because it was the best day she’d had in a month and her heart swelled and soared and it didn’t matter if her grunkles were really lizard men from Mars because she was here and she felt _wanted_ for the first time in almost a month.

 _This is a good family,_ Mabel decided to herself. It was a good family, and she couldn’t have been happier about it.


	3. Chapter 3

Dipper Pines considered himself a pretty smart kid.

Okay, okay, so he wasn’t … “top class” material or accelerated learning material, or even higher-grade-than-his-twin-sister material, but he knew his stuff. He read ahead in his classes, he was interested in theoretical mathematics and he got grades his parents are - _were_ \- proud of. They had always encouraged his curiosity, his wish to explore the world - acknowledged and loved it, even. When he was 6, Dipper’s dad opened up a computer and showed him all the components and parts; how it all worked together. Ever since then, Dipper has never taken anything at face value; he has always wondered what lay beneath the surface of things, what made it all tick. He has always learned fast because of that, always worked extra hard to figure things out.  Because of that, he could say with at least some confidence that he was smart- the one he had over his creative, socialite sister. It was a fleeting confidence, for sure, but it was still confidence, which he did his best to cling to.

So he was sure - he was _confident_ \- in his ability to figure out what was so mysterious about his great uncles. The great uncles that nobody in his family seemed to know existed. The great uncles that just decided to take him and his sister in, despite hardly knowing them. The great uncles, one missing an eye and one with 2 extra fingers,  who travel for work and run a museum shop and have a cool science lab quietly hiding under their home. Which, for Dipper, pretty much had ‘suspicious’ written all over it and that suspicion over his long lost relatives only grew stronger with each passing day.

It had started when he actually sat down and thought about it, talking to Mabel his first night there. That was when it had first hit him how unsettling it was that nobody in the family had told them of an extra set of twins existing that they were related to. But he had brushed it aside, following Mabel’s lead to trust their grunkles, at least for a little while, and agreeing to stay with them. That suspicion was quick to creep back into his system by the next morning though, when Ford was completely missing, Stan stating over breakfast that he had left overnight so that he could get a head start on his travels.

Dipper frowned into his pancakes (“ _Stancakes_! My very own recipe!”) and stabbed at them sadly for most of breakfast. Sure, yes, he didn’t totally trust his great uncles because he thought they were up to something weird (and potentially dangerous, if Stan’s physique was anything to go off of), but in the short timespan he had known Ford he had really taken a liking to the guy. He reminded Dipper of a weird mix of himself and - his stomach gave a painful twist - his late father. Of course the facial resemblance was there; they were both Pines boys after all. But the way he spoke, his excitement over crazy science things, his eagerness to share that with Dipper…

Dipper swallowed, feeling his eyes sting as he brought a hand up to wipe at his nose. He needed to focus more on what Ford was up to and not on how attached he was getting to him. Besides, the man was gone for a few days, maybe more. It would just be him, Mabel, Stan, and the Shack workers for the time being, so he did his best to focus on those people and not bombard Stan with questions like when Ford was getting back. _‘Watch pot never boils…’_ or however the saying went.

The second day at the Shack was filled with a lot of tourists and the twins becoming acquainted with Soos and Wendy, Stan’s left and right hand coworkers (also, his only coworkers). Soos - or Jesus Alonzo Ramirez, but he preferred just ‘Soos’ - was more of an overgrown, overweight child than adult at a paltry 22, and he connected with both twins immediately. He was jovial, innocent, and into all the crazy weirdness that went on around the Shack. When Dipper couldn’t stop himself from asking about that weirdness, he was more than elated when Soos shared in his sentiments.

“Oh dude, there’s definitely some weird stuff that goes on here in the Shack and in town,” Soos said, his voice low as he bent down to Dipper’s level. Dipper swallowed a happy squeal and grinned broadly.

“Do you know anything? Have you _seen_ anything? Do you know what the Stans are up to?” Soos brought a hand up to stop the stream of questions and Dipper clammed up, his eyes going big. Soos looked deadly serious as he motioned Dipper closer and he obliged, leaning in for the whispered response.

“I’m not saying it’s definite, dude, but… _Preetty_ sure I’ve seen aliens in town. I mean, I could be wrong but! Aliens, dude. Or at least, things from a different world.” Dipper gasped and looked down thoughtfully, fingers drumming against his chin. It certainly fit with his lizard-men from Mars theory…

“I could see that, but why all the inventions in the basement? What could Ford use those for? I mean, logically I suppose he could be selling them to alien black market for high prices, but how are they getting here?” He started to pace before Soos grabbed his shoulder, gently wheeling him back around.

“Look Dipper, you’re a smart kid so I know you’ll figure this out, but I’ve known the Stans for a long time. I’ve worked for Mr. Pines for like, 12 years, or something. And I know they get up to some weird stuff sometimes, but they really are good guys.” He patted his shoulder and smiled reassuringly. “They’ll take good care of you. They’re a little rough around the edges, and sure, they sneak out of the house for days or weeks at a time - but they have good hearts, even if they keep some things close to the vest. You’ll see.” With that, Soos stood up, straightened his cap, and got back to work fixing the ice cream freezer. Dipper sighed, unsure of what to make of all of this. He was in the process of mentally cataloging everything Soos had told him when another voice piped up.

“Seriously man, don’t sweat it. The Stans are cool guys. Nothing you gotta worry about there.”

Dipper looked up and swallowed - hard. The flannel-wearing redhead that was Wendy Corduroy had spoken up from her seat behind the register, absently flicking through a teen magazine as she propped her boots on the counter. He had been immediately smitten with the green-eyed 16-year-old as soon as he’d seen her but hadn’t spoken to her at all for fear of tripping on words. Now she was addressing him directly and his brain was stalling, trying to catch up to reality.

“Oh! Wendy! You-you know anything about them?” He coughed, trying for nonchalant banter.

“Sure, I mean, everyone knows about the Stans,” she said, looking at him and shrugging. “They are just two old weird dudes that live in a weird old house. Super close though; if we’re being honest, it’s actually pretty _weird_ to see Stan walking around without Ford. You’d think they were Siamese twins with the way they are attached at the hip. The only time I have ever seen them apart is usually when they are both at work. Other than that, Ford’s always around. He usually doesn’t leave like this without Stan.”

“Really?” This genuinely interested Dipper, and he made a mental note. “You mean Ford usually doesn’t leave or…?”

“What I mean is that if Stan or Ford need to go anywhere, they typically go together. I asked them about it once because dude, I am nowhere near that close with my brothers, and Stan just shrugged and said they’ve always been close. Guess they had some personal bizz that went down years ago though, where they were separated for a while. When Dad helped build this place, there was no “Stanley Pines” in Gravity Falls. I don’t tend to ask questions about it though.”

“Why not?”

Wendy, always relaxed enough to look apathetic to everything, followed this up with rolling her eyes. “I don’t get into personal bizz, man, that stuff is sticky and makes me all itchy. I tend to just let people be people, you know? Who cares if the Stans are close; at the end of the day, I honestly don’t because why should I? They pay me to be here, not to project my issues onto them.”

After that, both employees had little to say about the Stans that was anything out of the ordinary. If anything,Soos worshipped Stan, seeing him in the highest regard. Wendy remained distant and aloof but weirdly open to any of the Pines, swapping boy stories with Mabel. But some things they had said nagged at Dipper and wouldn’t leave. He kept running the words over and over again in his head, doing his best to memorize them.

_“- they sneak out of the house for days or weeks at a time -”_

_“-  if we’re being honest, it’s actually pretty weird to see Stan walking around without Ford-”_

_“ Guess they had some personal bizz that went down years ago though”_

Dipper frowned; they were all pieces; pieces to a giant puzzle that he was intent on figuring out.

Stan himself was hardly a wealth of knowledge, dodging the subject if Dipper was ever brave enough to breach it. Dipper found out quick that Stan was a conman and a serious liar; watching him work on the masses was _fascinating_ , but it taught him too that Stan wasn’t necessarily a trustworthy customer. He spouted out different stories to each tour group that came through; sometimes it was aliens, sometimes it was toxic waste, sometimes they saw different props than the last group, or the same props with different names attached. Every lie was expertly spun and the audience ate it up every time, but Dipper just furrowed his brow and took more notes. He noted how many times people even asked about his eye and how many different answers he gave. Some choice ones included ‘bear fight (“You should see how the bear looks… Right over here!” he shouts as he motions to a giant stuffed ursine in the other room), ‘sky diving accident’ (“My eye broke my fall!”), and ‘frostbite’ (“It was the winter of 1977…”). He thought about the star story he had told Mabel and frowned, disappointment sitting low in his stomach. Of course he would lie to them about how he lost his eye, the real story was probably too tragic or too boring to recite so he just thought of new ones to make up for it. The fact that Mabel believed Stan’s story worked to sour that disappointment even further though; _Mabel deserves the truth_ , he thought angrily, stabbing his pen into his paper furiously that night while taking notes. _He shouldn’t need to lie to her to get her to like him_. But maybe that’s all his Grunkle Stan was; a bundle of lies on lies and the more Dipper saw, the less he approved of.

That wasn’t the most frustrating thing about Stan though. The worst of it, for Dipper, was how much Stan seemed to _care_ about the twins. Whenever he was around, he was chatting with them, doting on them, cracking jokes with them. Even with one eye, he was majorly expressive; his entire body shook when he laughed, his grin was a mile wide, he hit on the old ladies whenever they went into town, and he let the kids watch what they wanted to when it was their turn for the television. And Dipper… Dipper didn’t know what to do with this. He didn’t know what to do with this literal grifter with a missing eye, had scars crisscrossing his arms and back, who enjoyed lounging in his PJs and cooking meals for more than two people. There was no grace to him at all; he did everything with a bull-headed stubbornness and said everything with no filter attached. Yet, everyone in town loved him and gravitated towards him. He was a magnet for attention.

And Dipper didn’t understand what was so special about him. He didn’t understand how Stan could be so polar opposite; was he trustworthy, or not? Did he care about him and his sister, or not? Was he really that funny all the time, or did he just use his jovial attitude to hide other things about himself, like how he paced around when he was alone, or left to ‘check on messages’ or how he was always awake when Dipper got up to use the bathroom at night? Was anything about his uncle genuine?

Such doubts kept Dipper at an arm’s length from Stan while he tried to spy on him at any given moment. It worried him that Mabel was so trusting and open and attached to Stan when he saw nothing but lies and deceit. What if something he was hiding was harmful? What if Mabel got hurt, what if Mabel got-? He… he couldn’t let that happen. He needed to get to the bottom of all this.

If not for his own sake, then for hers.

He didn’t want to regret his decision.

It went like that for four days straight. Every day, Dipper watched Stan, talked to Wendy and Soos, hung out with Mabel, and then brought what he learned to bed with him that night. By the fourth night, his bed was a mess, hidden under papers and notebooks filled with jotted clues and theories. His wall fared no better; he had found an old cork board up in the attic where they slept and had set it up, pinning anything of interest to it. He would sit for hours, formulating, thinking, mumbling under his breath, until Mabel was forced to throw stuffed unicorns and tigers at him, grumbling about how her dork brother should sleep. Tonight though, it was still early when she came up, grinning from ear to ear, glitter falling off of her with each step. Dipper looked up from his notes of _‘least to most likely scenarios’_ just in time to see Mabel hit her bed, toys flying on impact.

“I’ll let you know you owe me 5 bucks– Gompers _loves_ his new sweater, he even ate the sleeve,” she stated proudly. Gompers was the goat that hung around the Shack. According to Stan, it had showed up one day and they hadn’t the heart to kick it off the premises. Dipper just rolled his eyes, jotting down a few more words before turning to her and responding.

“Mabel, just because a goat eats a sweater sleeve doesn’t mean it loves it. I don’t even think goats are capable of love.” He went back to his notes but was interrupted by Mabel snatching the paper from him.

“Hey! Mabel, give that back!” She laughed as he swiped the air fruitlessly after her hands.

“Jeez, bro-bro, this nerd-thing you’ve been working on is really getting to you. I haven’t seen you this involved since you thought our 5th-grade teacher was a werewolf.” He stammered out excuses and justifications but she was barely listening, her smile disappearing as she read his notes.

“Dipper, are you _really_ still trying to figure out if our Grunkles are up to something secret?” he voice dripped with a disappointment that made him wince.

“I-I’m just trying to figure it out logically, mathematically,” he replied hastily. “Because you know, Stan’s stories never line up, and have you seen him? He never sleeps! Have you noticed that?”

“Maybe he’s sleeping when you’re sleeping, Dipper?” she said slowly, eyebrow raised as she tossed back the book. It smacked his face and he grabbed it before it fell off the bed.

“Well, I still want to know why nobody talked about them! It’s like everyone all forgot, or something!” He points to the words on top of his notes, ringed in red ink: “ _Memory-Wiping Device?_ ” Mabel made a loud farting noise with her mouth.

“Dipper please, how could they have done that? Besides, what it if was something really stupid simple, huh? Maybe, instead of being mind-controlling lizard men from space, they were just kicked out or something, and everyone _hated them_ and so they never talked about it.”

“Where would the proof be of that, though, huh? It’s not like there are any pictures lying around or anything of them.”

“Well, there is that yearbook down in the study nobody ever goes into.”

Dipper made a choking noise and almost fell off the bed. He recovered -barely- and gathered loose paper to his chest.

“What?” he squeaked out. “What study, what yearbook?”

“Oh, dude, you didn’t know? Oh man you have _really_ been missing out of what this house has to offer.” Dipper realized belatedly that his sister was right; he had been so busy with Stan and trying to figure out the mystery of their Grunkles that he never even thought to explore the grounds more thoroughly. He had just followed Stan and Stan didn’t go far. Dipper put his notes to the side and jumped off the bed., grabbing Mabel’s hand.

“ _Ohmigosh_ Mabel! This could be the breakthrough I’ve been looking for! Do you have it, do you know where it is?” She grinned and waved a hand at him confidently.

“No worries, Dippin’ Sauce! I got this; your sister Mabel is on the case! Follow me!” She led him out the door and down the stairs, still holding his hand. At the bottom of the stairs, Mabel did a quick look around, brown curls bouncing on her shoulders as her head whipped left and right. Once she was sure the coast was clear, she pulled Dipper down a hallway, which ended in a large, ornate door. The hallway itself looked overly dusty; maybe the Stans didn’t come down here often? He waved some sneeze-inducing particles away from his nose as Mabel pushed open the door, revealing a room long-since visited.

“Woah,” Dipper said, low and quiet. The room was large and expansive and certainly looked like an abandoned study. Light filtered through the one window over a 70s-looking couch, complete with clock and lamp post on the arm rest. A fireplace was built into the far wall; he realized belatedly that it was connected to the chimney that jutted through his half of the attic upstairs. Next to the fireplace were multiple filing cabinets and bookshelves, which were full of old tomes. On the wall opposite the couch, a giant mirror stood half-covered and an attached half-bath could be seen through a cracked doorway. Mabel skipped around the square happily, kicking up dust off the chintzy shag carpet. She hummed under her breath as she walked up to the bookshelf, searching each row carefully.

“I was opening up random doors like a creep when I found this room! I checked out some of the books, but most of them were super boring science stuff. Ah-ha!” she thumbed out a thin, glossy book with a yellow covering and blue lettering. “‘Glass Shard Beach High School, 1970!’” She held it up for him to see and then took it over to the couch for easier reading. Dipper followed, his curiosity mounting with every step.

“Glass Shard Beach? I’ve never heard of that.” He sat down next to his sister, leaning over her shoulder to look at the pictures. Greaser-looking boys, girls with flowers in their hair, and sweaty, letter-jacket jocks graced the pages.

“Me neither,” she said excitedly, kicking her feet. Dipper raised an eyebrow, humming. He reached over and flipped to the front of the book, looking for a more definite location. He found it on the inside title page.

“New Jersey… well, that explains the accent,” he mused, and they continued forward together. Mabel couldn’t help but laugh at the fashion sense of the period, and made a game out of trying to find their grunkles in the pictures. But the more pages they flipped through, the more despondent she became. Dipper, sensing this, took the book and flipped through it carefully.

“If we really want to find them and see what they look like, let’s go through each grade,” he stated, flicking to the glossary before proceeding. “Everyone always has a school photo, and they’re alphabetical, so we’re bound to find them eventually.” Mabel nodded, and together they browsed the grades. Freshman, Sophomore and Junior all revealed nothing of interest, so by process of elimination they must have been…

“Aha!” Dipper exclaimed, and pointed to a particular senior photo. It was a small, skinny kid with bright eyes behind glasses, with a caption reading “Stanford Pines”. They both stared at the photo eagerly but when their eyes flicked to the right, looking for Stanley, their faces fell. His name was there, but a simple grey box with an “X” through it stood in his place. Dipper gasped and Mabel let out a low whistle.

“Wow, Grunkle Stan really _did_ eliminate all evidence of his younger self!” she exclaimed, eyes bright. Dipper groaned and rolled his eyes.

“No, no, that can’t be it. This is only because someone forgot to take his picture, or he wasn’t there on picture day. He can’t eliminate himself from _time,_ Mabel.”

“Oh, but he can be a lizard man with mind-control powers from MARS, that _totally_ makes more sense.”

“Augh, just trust me on this!” he said, his cheeks heating up. “Come on, let’s see if we can at least find Ford somewhere else in the book. If they were seniors, they’re bound to be here somewhere and if he is, then Stan might be there too.”

And so the hunt began. They slowly worked through the pages, checking each face they saw with scrutiny before moving on to the next one. But it wasn’t until they hit a page titled “Science Fair!” towards the middle back of the book that they really struck gold. As soon as the page was turned, Mabel gasped excitedly, letting out a squeal.

“Dipper-Dipper! LOOK!” She pointed to a specific polaroid shot and– there they were. There was no mistaking the twin image. Ford stood there, holding a trophy for his experiment while Stan threw an arm around him, grinning happily and pointing to his brother. Dipper smacked his head and let out a laugh.

“Oh man, Stan was chubby!” Mabel pushed him for that and grabbed the book out of his hand, getting a closer look. She then _hrmmmed_ softly, and flipped to the beginning; she pointed to another photo and held it up; somehow they must have missed it.

“And here! Stan boxing! The Stans boxed when they were younger!” And indeed, the shot was of Stan and Ford in boxing gear; a man in glasses, a hat, and sporting a suspicious square chin hovered behind them.

“Woooah, this is so unreal! Mabel, do you know what this means?”

“That Stan _wasn’t_ a clone of Grunkle Ford that had it’s eye removed so that we could tell them apart?”

“I- _what-_ no- I mean yeah, I guess so?” he responded, sufficiently confused.  “It means that Stan may not have finished his last year of high school!”

Mabel gasped, but then frowned. She squinted, giving Dipper a bit of the stink eye.

“So?” she inquired defensively. “Maybe he was meant for something greater than education. Like selling gift shop supplies! Not everything is about being _smart,_ Dipper.” Dipper frowned, looking over the photos.

“It’s just… odd, you know? Why wouldn’t Stan finish high school, even when Ford did?”

They were both quiet for a moment, pondering the question silently between their minds. Mabel shifted first, and Dipper looked at her.

“Well… why don’t you just ask?” Mabel said, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. Dipper’s brow furrowed and he looked Mabel in the eye. His mind grappled with the answer. Yes, it was the obvious answer, but then… Stan lied. About _everything_. If he couldn’t even tell the truth about his eye, how would he possibly respond to a question about why he dropped out of high school? He took a deep breath and was about to respond when -

“Dipper! Mabel! Get down here, ya knuckleheads, I got an announcement!”

Both kids jumped, Dipper fumbling with the book as it tried to fall out of his lap. Mabel shot up off the couch and Dipper ran to the bookshelf, scrabbling to put the book back. Mabel waved at him to hurry up at the door, and they both ran out, closing the study up behind them. They hurried into the gift shop to see Stan standing there in his suit and bow tie, hands on his hips. Soos was also there, and Wendy was technically present, but her face was hidden once again behind the teen magazine, only her hat being visible. They gasped for air and his eyebrows shot up.

“Yeesh, run a mile on the way down here? You’re both sweaty enough to shower.”

“Sorry Grunkle Stan -” Dipper gasped out, rubbing his split side as he straightened out. “What-uh- what did you want to talk to us about?” In response, Stan’s thumb shot to Soos, who grinned at the kids happily.

“I gotta run out tonight to pick up Ford. Shouldn’t be too late, but don’t wait up. Soos, being the _absolute volunteer_ that he is, decided to watch you guys tonight at no extra charge. Of course, I don’t pay him anyway, but this is especially free.”

“Dudes, we are gonna _rock da house_ tonight!!” Soos yelled, as Mabel squeaked happily. Dipper just frowned though, looking square at Stan.

“But I thought Grunkle Ford drove himself. Did something happen?” At that, Stan just groaned and rolled his eyes.

“ _Yeah_ , my clumsy nerd of a brother got a flat tire on his way home, thought he could fix it himself, and somehow made it _worse_. So now I gotta go and fix it for him.” Dipper just rubbed his arm and looked down, nodding. It was a sound reason to go pick someone up, but Dipper wasn’t convinced. He didn’t know what to think anymore.

“Don’t worry about the kids, Mr. Pines. They’re in good hands with me. Now who wants popcorn and scary movies all night long?” Mabel cheered loudly, and Dipper couldn’t help but grin. Maybe this one time, Stan wasn’t lying. Maybe this one time, it would be okay.

“Only if it happens to be ‘ _Scary House 4!’_ Dipper yelled excitedly, which made Mabel only cheer harder. All the noise finally prompted Wendy to get up from her lounging spot, smiling at the others.

“If you guys want, I got the whole _Scary House Collection_ back at my Dad’s place. I can swing by later if you’d like and we’ll marathon it until we wet ourselves.” Dipper’s heart flew to his throat and he couldn’t stop the furious blush on his cheeks. Of _course_ his giant crush would love the same scary movie collection he would. He tried to swallow it all down as he laughed nervously. Behind their excited noise and planning, Stan groaned, shoving a finger in one of his ears.

“Alright, alright, _yeesh,_ I never thought you guys would be so happy to be rid of me for a night. Only rules; 1. If it’s not clean when I get back with Ford, you’re gonna hear laughter from me, and then ya might hear some angry noises from him. 2. Don’t go in the basement. 3. Stay in the house after dark. Other than that, I gotta get ready to go. Soos! Close up the gift shop, I wanna be ready to leave this dump in an hour!”

Soos’ hand flew to his forehead in salute. “You got it, Mr. Pines!” All of them did a miniature break, going to their respective areas. Soos and Wendy closed up the shop, while Dipper and Mabel went upstairs to get ready for the night. Dipper, lost in a rush of hormones and excitement, momentarily forgot about everything but the fact that Wendy was going to be watching movies with _him._ Mabel couldn’t help but notice, nudging his side and goading another strong red blush on Dipper’s end.

And since everyone was excited and getting ready for the night ahead, nobody was the wiser when Stan slipped downstairs and out of sight.

 

* * *

 

The hour went quickly. Dipper had decided to spend his time actually showering for once, since he always seemed to forget and Mabel always had to remind him. But if movies with Wendy was a thing that was going to happen, well, he wanted to do his best to not look gross and smelly and sweaty. He ran conversation after conversation through his brain, trying to get it all right before he got out and toweled off. He dressed and checked his hair; the brown mass fluffed and fell wherever it wanted to, but he did his best to tame it before just forgoing it all and grabbing his hat to try and contain it. Mabel couldn’t help but notice his fussing and gave him a hip bump and a grin as he specked himself out in the mirror hanging out in their attic room.

“Oooh, is Dipper getting dressed up for someone special? Have you been eying Wendy, hoping to get lucky with the older ladies?” she teased him and he laughed shakily.

“Wh-what no, I mean, maybe! It-it helps that we like the same movies right? _Scary House_ is a classic, and I totally have conversation prepared. I’ll be fine.”

“Just don’t overthink it like you always do.”

“I don’t always over-” Mabel made an angry noise in her throat and motioned to his mess of a bed. He frowned. “Okay but this will be different. It’s all planned out, I’ll be fine!”

For the most part, he was. Wendy had the foresight to bring a DVD player with her to play the movies on the old tube in the Shack’s living room, and they all worked together to move the couch closer. Dipper found himself squashed between Wendy and Mabel, causing his face to be a constant shade of pink. There was a constant lightheadedness that came with being so close to his crush but he did his best to keep his cool. He did pretty awesome through the entirety of _Scary House_ , relaxed into laughter for _Scary House 2_ , and will never admit how his heart jumped around in fear during _Scary House 3_. All four of them completely lost track of time, having too much fun, but after _Scary House 4_ ,  everyone was feeling the night was wearing thin. Soos had already collapsed on the edge of the couch, snoring like a lion, when Wendy decided to head out, hugging the kids close. Dipper felt his heart race at the contact, somehow managing out a light returning pat.

“I better get home soon, but this was hella fun, dudes,” she said, putting on her bike helmet. “Next time, movie night will be at my place.”

“Yeah, s-sure!” Dipper stammered out, and he was so thankful for how dark it was so that she couldn’t see the red tinting his cheeks. Mabel, who had been busy tucking Soos in with a few blankets, looked over and grinned at her brother, her braces glinting a bit in the dark. He walked Wendy out the front door and she headed out with a wave, jumping on her bike and pedaling down the hill. Dipper stood at the door and watched her go, letting out the breath he’d been holding. He still couldn’t believe the evening had gone so well. He waited until she got past Stan’s car and the treeline, heading out of sight, before looking away and turning to go back -

Wait.

Stan’s car.

_Stan’s car._

The breath he had let out caught in his throat and he choked. Dipper wheeled around and stared, making sure what he saw wasn’t some clever illusion. But no - the old red car gleamed in the light of the slivered moon, staring at Dipper like a teen lover caught in the bedroom. His heart hammered in his chest painfully as he remembered Stan’s rule; _Stay in the house after dark_. His head felt like exploding as he ran in and grabbed Mabel who gave him a quizzical look.

“Dipper? What-” she whispered to him, keeping her voice low so as to not wake Soos on the couch.

“Did you see Stan leave this evening?” he hissed out urgently. She frowned, thinking.

“N-no, I was upstairs with you. I thought he may have said he was heading out but -”

“His car is still here.”

“Wha-”

“ _His car is sitting outside of the Shack as we speak, Mabel._ ” He shook her arm, trying to get her to understand. She just looked at her brother apprehensively, the realization painfully dawning.

“You’re too tired Dipper, quit pulling my leg. If his car is here, then how is he picking up Grunkle Ford?”

“I don’t- I don’t -” he stammered, his brain hurting from working overtime. There was a clue here, he just had to remember it, had to pick it out-

_Don’t go in the basement._

That was it.

He pulled Mabel’s arm, moving again, his brain whirring so loudly in his ears he couldn’t hear his sister’s complaints. He rushed to the basement door, swinging it open and pulling them down the steps. When he got to the elevator door, he flicked  open the panel to call the elevator and thanked his lucky stars he had seen Ford put the code in. He punched the numbers and waited, feeling lightheaded when he heard the ding of its arrival. He grabbed Mabel’s hand tight, breathing hard as they clamored into the elevator, pushing the down button. She gave him a worried look.

“Okay, bro-bro, I don’t want you to freak out but what the _heck_ are you doing? Grunkle Stan told us not to -”

“-go in the basement, I know. But you know what else he said? ‘Don’t go outside’. Well I went outside to say goodbye to Wendy and his car was there. He didn’t tell us to stay inside to protect us, he just didn’t want us to see his big fat lie!”

“So you think he’s hiding something in the basement too?”

“Yes! And whatever it is, it’s connected to all the weird stuff they get up to, why they always leave for weeks at a time- maybe even why nobody in the family knows them!”

The elevator dinged. The twins scrambled out.

The basement was dark, and it looked as if nothing had been touched since their tour through it almost 5 days ago. They both split up, looking up and down and all around the different contraptions and inventions. Many of them were ridiculously mundane and totally domestic; other’s looked like they could take your head off just by touching it. Just as Dipper was eying something that suspiciously looked like a motorized melon-baller, Mabel called to him, and he rushed over.

She was by the far end of the room, holding something that looked to be a kind of gun. Her expression looked perplexed, and when Dipper got close, he could see why.

The gun itself was nothing like anything he’d ever seen. It had a screen on one end and a sort of triangle barrel on the other. When he picked it up, it glowed with a blue hue. Out of fear, Dipper decided to point it anywhere that _wasn’t_ his sister or his own face; the blank wall did well enough, as long as the thing didn’t accidentally fire. He swallowed thickly and kept looking it over. There were a few dials on the sides, mostly for calibration, but half of the symbols he didn’t recognize, as if there was a language out there he had never seen. He left them untouched as he continued his inspection. The handle was nothing exciting, but it did have an interesting under grip. When he held it just right in his hand the screen lit itself up, displaying a string of numbers and symbols. He pulled his head back, eying Mabel apprehensively. She just shrugged and they both leaned in to get a better look.

“732-CA” it read. His brow furrowed; it reminded him of the Dewey Decimal System, but why would it be on this gun-like device? Underneath the letters a small message flashed.

“Enter”, Mabel breathed out, her eyes getting wide. “Dipper, can I see that thing real quick?” She held out a hand, and he eyed it carefully. He knew he shouldn’t- this thing could be dangerous - but it could also be a key that could unlock… something. On the flipside it could also hurt Mabel, and with everything with the Stans, everything with their _parents_ … he hesitated, his hand shaking a bit. She gave him a soft, pleading look.

“Please, Dipper, trust me.” He bit his lip and looked down. He may not trust his uncles but… if he couldn’t trust Mabel, who could he trust? Who could he confide in, about _anything_? Slowly, he handed it over and she stared at it, face set. She lifted it, turned it, looked underneath it. Then, she huffed out a breath, nodding her head.

And pressed her finger hard to the screen.

Instantly a blue light shot straight out of the triangular end, catching them off-guard and pushing them backwards. Dipper shielded his face and felt a wind whip around him. When he got the courage to look back up, he gasped and cursed out a string of words his mother would have smacked him for.

On the wall, where it once had been blank, was a perfectly human-sized circular blue vortex. The vortex hummed with energy and electricity, but did little else. Mabel gasped out a laugh and went to touch it.

Instantly, Dipper was on her, trying to stop her actions.

“Mabel, what are you doing, you don’t know what that is!” he screamed frantically, trying to stop her. She gave him a look that was full of fear but also - surprisingly - excitement.

“Dipper, don’t you get it? The message said “Enter”. Which means we gotta go in!”

“Are you crazy?!” he yelled, his voice cracking under the pressure. “You can’t be serious!”

“Serious as a heart attack Dipper, now come on! I want to go in; it’s my decision! Are you going to come or not?”

Dipper bit his lip, fear of the unknown drenching him. On one hand, this could kill them. This could literally kill them, pull them apart, molecule by molecule. Or…

Or it could be the key to where Stan went. Stan, who usually leaves with his brother for days or weeks on end. Stan, who lied to them about the car and his eye. Stan, who definitely _wasn’t_ helping his brother out with a flat tire.

Dipper looked Mabel hard in the face and nodded once. She nodded back.

Together, they fell sideways into the swirling blue vortex and felt the world shift beneath them. Dipper squeezed his eyes shut as he hugged his sister tight to him. They fell, landing hard on the floor of wherever the vortex had sent them. Dipper opened his eye a crack and bolted upright, a choked noise escaping him as he tugged Mabel’s arm furiously, trying to get her attention. Mabel protested but stopped fighting against him immediately as she looked around, scrambling to keep up with and stay close to Dipper. Dipper, for his part, was doing his best to not have a heart attack, stay as quiet as possible and find cover - _any goddamn cover_ \- as fast as possible without rousing suspicion.

Wherever they were, it wasn’t Gravity Falls anymore. At least, not a Gravity Falls he was ever familiar with. There were no buildings, no mountains, no trees; in front of them lay a giant, vast ocean of what appeared to be water (but like _hell_ was Dipper going to touch it), and they stood on the beach, a while away from the waves as they churned angrily and lapped hungrily at the shoreline. Two suns blazed low and angry in the evening sky, casting all sorts of treacherous shadows. But all of that paled in comparison to what else lurked above, what caused Dipper to want to find cover as fast as his weak, fainting legs could carry him. For up there, silhouetted against the light, was what looked like a group of giant humanoid wasps, and _all heading toward their beach_. And from the looks of things, there weren’t many places to hide, no weapons of any sort, and there was no way they could outrun those flying monstrosities even with an ocean’s amount of adrenaline flowing through his veins. This all didn’t stop the twins from trying to move out of the way as fast as possible, and Dipper ran up the embankment, Mabel at his heels, and dove for the high grass ( _grass, right? Yeah, totally grass_ ), pulling them down and hopefully out of sight.

The buzzing of huge wings filled the air. Mabel turned to him, eyes big with fear, and opened her mouth to say something. Dipper just clapped a hand over her mouth, shaking his head, knowing his eyes were just as wide and terrified as hers. Suddenly the wind picked up and Dipper threw his arms up, a cry escaping him. The bugs were above them, he could feel it, and just the thought made his skin crawl, his stomach flip and he felt the whirring of their wings in his chest, thought he heard the muffled _thud_ as one landed nearby and it was all Dipper could do not to swallow his whole throat. He instinctively pulled Mabel behind him and chanced a glance over his shoulder.

The thing was even nastier up close. It was all beetle-black with neon yellow-green stripes, and large, brown compound eyes swayed this way and that over the land. Huge mandibles clicked and trilled out sounds, as if they were huge birds, their gossamer-thin wings folding up perfectly under hard protective shields. Like wasps, they had three body segments, 6 legs (4 to walk on), and a giant, deadly-looking stinger. The sight of it alone brought horrified tears to his eyes and scooted back with Mabel from his prone position, trying to get as much distance as possible.

It didn’t work. His attempt to escape caused the thing’s head to jerk around, looking for the source of the movement. Dipper froze completely, fear dripping from his pores in the form of sweat. What kind of senses did this thing have? Was it like a snake? Could it see heat? As its compound eyes seem to lock onto him and his sister, all he could think of was how he never thought it’d be like this, but maybe- maybe this was okay, maybe it wouldn’t matter how dangerous his grunkles were because they had been stupid and selfish and now they were gonna see mom and dad and-

The thing’s head blew up.

Dipper blinked, a confused noise escaping him. Chunks of green-blue flesh splattered around and the body of the creature flailed awkwardly before falling on the floor. The death of the giant insect caused the others to be alerted, and an angry buzzing filled the air. The swarm knew it’s friend had just died, and they weren’t happy about it.

Dipper chanced a glance at his sister and she stared back at him, mouth slightly open. Neither of them had any time to process what was going on before a rough hand grabbed them, a voice grunting as it pulled them up and away from the ground. Dipper struggled, but once he started, he was completely halted as he was tossed under an arm and tossed roughly behind whoever this stranger who had decided to briefly manhandle them was. A shadow fell over them as a loud, gruff voice shouted _“GET DOWN!”_ Dipper so badly wanted to oblige but so badly more wanted to understand, and couldn’t stop himself as he glanced up, wondering who this… savior? Captor? was.

Of course, he got a back shot. Of course, that back shot included a person wearing a hoodie. Of course, that face was partially obscured as the person pulled a large rifle from their back, aiming carefully at each bug that came too close. Of course, he couldn’t see anything distinguishing of this unknown person, except they looked distinctly like a ‘he’, judging by the shoulders, and they were a real good shot and Dipper watched in awe as one by one, the bugs fell from the sky, until the entire horde was either wiped out or didn’t find it worth continuing. The last ones flew off, and the person shouldered the rifle, turning around finally to face the twins. He ripped the cover from his mouth and pushed the hood back, revealing a very angry one-eyed face under a crazy mop of greying hair. A too-familiar voice rung in his ears as the man growled out,

_“What are you kids doing here?!”_

“Wh- _what?!_ ” Dipper gasped out, his eyes seeing but not believing. He looked this man over, from the hooded jacket, the frayed black shirt, the thick, deadly-looking gloves, the pants covered in at least 5 different belts and accessories, the thigh-high boots covered in grime. His mouth opened, closed, then opened again. Mabel recovered faster, her squeal trilling out the truth for everyone to hear.

“Grunkle Stan! _Is that really you?!”_


	4. Chapter 4

They were fighting.  As far as Ford could remember, it was their worst one to date.

Both he and his brother wrestled over a tattered book, the acrid smell of burning skin filling his nostrils and overpowering his other senses. His face hurt - hell _everything_ hurt, but his nose in particular throbbed from when Stanley had landed a particularly powerful punch. He knew he should be worrying about if it was broken or not, but he wasn’t. He was too hell-bent on getting back the book from his brother, because he had tried to burn it. Something awful would happen if Stan managed that, but Ford couldn’t for the life of him remember what, or why he knew that pbit of information. Behind him, a machine burst to life, throwing electricity everywhere as the fight escalated.

“Some brother you turned out to be, you care more about your dumb mysteries than your family, then you can have them!” Stan pushed his brother, fire in his eyes. Ford stumbled off-balance, the book to his chest. Instinctively, he reached out, looking for support, not wanting to fall - and he found his brother’s arm. Stan grunted, lurching forward as his brother dragged him down… except they weren’t falling. They were being raised into the air. Ford looked over his shoulder, the portal he had built humming ferociously; as it powered up, the gravity around them failed.

“Stanley, grab something, anything!” Ford looked back at his twin, crazed fear washing over his face. When he looked to Stanley, though, his brother lurched forward, grabbing the book. A weird grin cut across his features, his eyes hidden. Ford’s brow furrowed. This isn’t how this happened, this wasn’t what he remembered…

A loud, shrill, nasally laugh reverberated in the cave. Ford felt his blood freeze at the sound and watched in horror as Stan’s head cricked up at him, eyes yellow, his pupils transformed into slits. He jerked his head back, trying to pull the book closer as they both floated, suspended in time. The book didn’t budge from his brother’s fingers, even as the blue flame started smouldering from his palms.

“Gee, quite some memory to be delving into tonight, Sixer! Let’s take some time to rewrite it, shall we?” The shrill voice of a demon left his brother’s mouth, disorienting Ford and his sleep-fogged mind. Inside, he was panicking; on the outside he growled, pressing against his brother’s form with his foot, trying to gain leverage. It was hardly any use though, and the blue flames under his brother’s fingers spread over the book, licking against Ford’s hands, threatening him his disastrous burns. He yelped, instinctively letting go, and at this, the demon across from him grinned devilishly, cracking his brother’s face. A heavy boot connected with Ford’s chest, knocking the wind out of him as he fell backwards - straight towards the portal. In front of him, the dream demon laughed, the book in his hands and the surrounding room engulfing in flames.

“Man, this version is _WAY MORE FUN_ than what actually happens! It’s almost as good as _ACTUALLY_ destroying everything you love and care about!” the demon laughed maniacally as Stan’s body burnt and bubbled, causing Ford’s stomach to turn. Behind him the whirl of the portal grew louder - he could feel it’s overwhelming gravity pulling him in and he reached back towards the burning room.

“Get out of my head Bill! This doesn’t change anything!” Ford growled out as the portal swallowed him in like water in a drain. He just grinned broader as Stan’s skin melted away.

“Of course not! But where’s the fun later… if I can’t fuck with you now?! Sweet dreams, Stanford!” Bill waved genially, the sadistic smile never leaving his face as Stanford was swallowed, falling through time, space, falling through the universe, screaming all the while.  


* * *

  
Stanford awoke with a gasp, eyes shooting open as his hand groped for the knife handle next to him, bringing it up to his sweaty face protectively. A white-hot energy blade protruded from the weapon instantly as the handle reacted to Ford’s heat and biosignature, slicing with deadly accuracy. That was, of course, if there was anything to actually slice; the blade met nothing but air, illuminating the shadowy room he had procured for himself to lay low in. He took a few gasping breaths before moving, doing his best to slow his frantic heart. He swallowed, staring up at the wet, dank ceiling. As his sense of reality returned, he remembered where he was and sat up, rubbing his eyes from underneath his glasses.

It had been a while since he had had a dream from memory that was that vivid. And even worse, it had been a while since Bill had stepped in, especially while he was outside his home dimension. It worried him slightly, but as the dream faded away, so did the dread it had originally created. The image of his brother burning in front of him remained, however, smouldering in the back of his head, as if some grim reminder of what was a future possibility. _But that’s all it is,_ he thinks to himself, grunting as he stood up and stretched his back. I _t’s just one possibility out of infinite possibilities.  One that Bill picked out just to fuck with me. Gonna have to try harder than that though._  He sighed heavily and rolled his shoulders, walking over to the nearby window where his rifle was set up, ready and waiting. He looked out over the landscape before peeking into his scope, seeing if the target he was waiting for had moved at all. When nothing interesting happened, he sighed again, adjusting his gun’s settings and sitting back, surveying the scene in front of him.

It was as if a dystopian future of his home dimension was laid out in front of him; the seaside city he was located in was long-since abandoned, so the many tall buildings sat empty and decayed, covered with moss and ivy and other plants hell-bent on reclaiming the land for their own. All of the buildings looked more or less like this - all except one, which was the tall skyscraper that stood near the once-was downtown area. Instead of being reclaimed by nature, this building looked to be reconstructed via giant honeycombs. The yellowish-gray chunks filled in and reinforced the breaking structure, keeping the building firmly in place when it should have crumbled long ago. Here and there, large “additions” stuck out, rows of compartments visible in just the right light underneath a sheath of glistening nest-structure. As he watched, every now and then a large, winged, wasp-like creature would fly about, looking like an ant against the giant building around it. Ford watched the structure for a while, frowning, and pulled out a book from his interior jacket pocket. In it, he did a rough sketch of one of the additions, peering through the sniper scope whenever he needed a closer look.

If there was one thing Ford found most interesting about dimension 732-CA, it was the fact that it was one of the few where, on Earth, humans competed with other sentient races and species. Because of this, unlike the world he knew, humans weren’t always the ones on top. This city’s destruction and abandonment was a testament to that; it was fallout from a large civil unrest between humans and what were called Corvinians - a large, black, bird-race that took unkindly to the way they were treated and had revolted. In the backlash, the city was evacuated and left to rot; the bird people went someplace else, and the humans moved further along the coast. Years and years later, a queen Kleptorpian had crept in and made the place her own. Now, she controlled this entire area - and that had made a lot of people unhappy.

Which is where Ford came in. He was here to take out this queen. And then some.

He finished his sketch and looked out at the scene, chewing on his pen cap while he did so. A large group of workers flew from the building-turned-nest, out towards the open ocean - no doubt foraging for something to feed the multitude of young inside their base. He looked for some stragglers and noted them mentally, keeping a close eye on them. If one strayed too far, well, he’d take any shot that he could get if it was clean enough. Killing _any_ of the Kleptorps was difficult, because their hive mind mentality meant that they were always hyper aware whenever someone died. However, if Ford did his best to pick them off separately, away from the others, it could look like one simply died out in the field - a pretty standard occurrence. Kill too many too quickly though, and that’s enough to sound the alarm and have an all-out search done. With their race being a highly militant one, it was best to not rouse suspicion at all costs. These sentient wasps were fairly territorial and relentless in taking out perceived threats; one bad shot and it could get nasty.

Then again, Ford rarely ever got in a bad shot.

He went over to the sniper rifle set up at the window and looked it over carefully. It was a beautiful machine, one of the best models the multiverse had to offer and his modifications pushed it over the edge to one-of-a-kind. Like his knife (and most of his weapons, if he could get away with it), it reacted only to his unique biosignature; no other versions of himself or any other living thing could use it, though there was an override key he gave to Stan that gave him access, just in case of dire situations. It was a great security feature that had served him well; many a time an intruder had looked over his weaponry, trying to get it to work, only to get a bullet to the head or shoulder, depending on how mad Ford was feeling at the time. He smiled as he put a hand on the trigger, watching the machinery hum to life at his touch. He flipped his glasses up and peered through the scope, checking out potential targets.

As he looked out, one Kleptorp strayed too far on his patrol lines. Even from this distance, through the scope he saw every detail, every glint off of the insect’s metallic body. He followed it for a time, seeing what it would do, cocking his barrel as he did so. He then lined up the shot, took a breath, and pulled the trigger.

There was a muffled _crack_ from the end of his long barrel and through the scope he watched his energized bullet shatter the bug’s head spectacularly. He grinned and pulled away, readying the barrel for whenever his next shot would be. He checked the silencer on the end of his rifle’s muzzle before going back behind the scope and checking for another target. As he looked through the glass, he saw another Kleptorp come out to inspect the flailing body. He frowned. That wouldn’t do at all.

Another breath.

Another trigger pull.

Another exploding exoskeleton.

He pulled away and cocked his rifle again.

It was cathartic for him, as always. He wasn’t getting paid for the extra bodies, but he didn’t particularly care. As far as he knew, his client neither knew or care. Picking apart the opposition one by one was always a great de-stressor, and he indulged heavily.  He knew he should be more careful, that after this he would have to head out and find a new sniping position. It didn’t matter though; he planned on leaving anyway so he allowed himself a few more splattered bodies before deciding it best to pack up and leave. The west side of the complex was catching on to his miniature carnage fest, and they may try to start looking for him. So he gave a bored sigh, checked and removed his silencer before pocketing it, then took down his rifle from its position in the window. At the touch of a certain switch, it compressed and became compact, and Ford spent no time strapping it safely to his back before cleaning up the rest of his space. Just as he was hitting the stairs, his pocket lit up and vibrated. A small HUD in his glasses told him a call was incoming, and he groaned when he saw who it was from. Still, he unpocketed the phone and flipped it open, clearing his throat and readying his best business voice.

“Pines here.”

“Pines!!” The man on the other end shouted. Ford winced and held the phone away from his face to save his hearing. Like he _needed_ a busted eardrum right now. The man seemed not to care, continuing his loud tirade. “What’s taking so long?! You promised me the city would be cleared in 3 days! I’m sitting on day number 4 and the only thing you’ve seemed to accomplish is making the Queen more irate than usual!”

Ford scowled loudly at the phone, the anger in his gut rising. But he was used to this feeling; unlike his brother, he was a master at containing his less desirable emotions. It never reached his voice as he replied back,

“I’ve had a few hiccups along the way. When I took this job, you hadn’t mentioned to tell me the Hive was one of the biggest in the tri-state area.”

“Shouldn’t matter! This’ll come out of your paycheck if you can’t hurry this up! Delegates are ready to storm in and recapture that city, but with those Kleptorpians in the way, there’s no way we can do so safely.” Ford rolled his eyes. Politics in dimensions that weren’t even his own mattered so little it barely registered on his radar, even if he knew them all inside out.

“Give me another day. We’re back on track, so at this rate, everything will be going according to plan. We’re not among the best in our business without a reason.”

“Let’s just hope you’re still as good as you used to be,” was the reply on the other end. Ford ground his teeth, venomously eying the phone. He had a million and one retorts he could give this customer, but he held his tongue. There’d be no pay if he put a bullet in this guy’s brain. The client, not caring or aware of Ford’s anger, continued on. “Give me a report back before then. Do it on time, and you’ll still be paid normal price. Any later, and it starts coming out in chunks.”

“Got it,” Ford replied back impassively, unphased by the empty threat. He hung up the call and groaned loudly. Even for a man in politics, that guy had a big head to talk to Ford like that, as if he and his brother _didn’t_ have a multi-dimensional reputation. As if they weren’t _still_ on the top of the list for a smattering of intergalactic bounty hunters. As if they _weren’t_ wanted criminals in at least 157 different districts and banned from 52 others. Nope, just thinks that if he has the money to offer, it doesn’t matter.

Ford sighed. He did have to give the guy a little bit of a benefit of the doubt though. For one, he didn’t know Stan wasn’t with him on this like he was initially led to believe. That alone was enough of a setback; Ford was good at scoping and talking and making plans, but Stan was good at getting in and being the main distraction while Ford slipped in and did most of the dirty work. So without the show Stan usually provided him, he had to rework his strategy. And for the last few days, he’s been staking out, inching closer and closer to the hive, doing his best not to rouse too much suspicion. He had managed to get fairly close but then had a shave where one of the outpost soldiers had spotted him and had tried to take him on in a close quarters scuffle. It was a strategic move; many snipers couldn’t handle themselves when the opposition got up close. But his brother was one of the best grapplers around, and you don’t live with him for 30 years and not pick up a trick or two. That bug had lost his head in seconds, but it was too late by that point. They had seen his face and they all knew it; he had high-tailed it out of there before the swarm fell on him. If anything else came up well, they knew just what to look for.

Hence his current situation of gunning and running.

The phone lit up in his pocket again and he scowled down, expecting another message from Politician No. 567. Instead, his heart flipped as he saw an incoming message from Stan. He hurriedly checked it, descending the stairs a little quicker as his pulse picked up.

_What’s taking you so long? Gettin’ antsy over here._

A grinned pulled at his mouth before he pressed a button on the screen. Clearing his throat, he said,

“What, you worried? Think I can’t handle an extermination job?” The message sent, and he waited for the response. It didn’t take long and he paused on the stairs, checking out a window as he did so.

_Not me. The kids._

Ford swallowed hard and took in a deep breath, mentally berating himself. Gods, _the kids_ , of course. It was typical for him to forget that- it wasn’t like he was used to taking care of two 12-year-old twins, especially when he left the day after they arrived. They were probably starting to catch on to his absence as suspicious. But there was no way he could leave now. He was hoping to infiltrate tonight after dark, taking out the queen when the hive was at its lowest activity point. He picked up his pace down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

“What did you tell them? Hopefully not to think too much on it, right?”

He reached the bottom and looked out to the streets while his phone buzzed again.

_Nothing so far. The boy’s been pretty nosy._

He frowned at the phone, crossing the street when it was safe to do so. As he entered the next building he looked up, hearing the faint buzz of insect wings above him. He waited a few minutes for them to pass, watching as they descended on the spot where he just was. He felt the hair prickle on the back of his neck; the fact that they were so close was not a good sign. They would be looking for him soon. He turned and worked on getting distance from his last position, whispering a response into the device.

“Tell them I got a flat tire, or something.”

He crossed a few more buildings, slowly working towards the center hive. The closer he got, the more careful he became; the wasps were more frequent here, flying about either as outposts or as workers out scavenging. Either way, their stingers and the twin scythes they all carried weren’t fun to try and fight against. A notification blinked on his glasses, and he read the small message on the display.

_‘Flat tire?’ What the hell Ford, that’s usually a stalling-for-time tactic._

Ford swallowed and tried to busy himself with watching the movements of the giant deadly bugs while his brain worked double time. Yes, of course he was trying to stall for time, but he didn’t want Stan worried about him. Sure, it’d been awhile since he’d done a solo mission and sure yes, usually his solo missions were more along the lines of _tactical espionage_ and not full-scale genocide, but he could handle this. Stan just needed to keep a low profile so that they didn’t rouse suspicion on their end. Last thing they needed was someone - _anyone_ \- in their dimension knowing about what they were really up to in their down time.

He held his breath and ducked under a window, sticking to the wall as a Kleptorp whizzed past at high speed. He cautiously watched it go - again, heading the direction of where he was just minutes before.

Not a good sign.

He pulled the pistol from his belt just as a new message popped up.

_Seriously, are you stalling for time? Do you need me to do some bug stomping over there?_

Ford gritted his teeth and picked up the pace. A sense of dread fell uncomfortably into the pit of his stomach.

“Absolutely not, Stanley,” he hissed out, staying low. “Now we’ll talk about this later but don’t you dare - _ah shit!”_

He slid to a halt and took a sharp right, diving into a nearby open door. His knee creaked painfully as it hit the floor, but he tried not to think about it as he scrambled for cover. A Kleptorp had just landed in front of where he just was, and if he had any remaining luck it didn’t see him.

The low hum of wings and the trilling of an athropodian language nearby told him otherwise.

He cursed under his breath as his phone buzzed again, but he had no time to check it. Instead, he cocked the gun in his right hand. His left twitched over where his knife handle was located on his chest strap. He stilled himself as a shadow passed nearby, ducking out of sight. As soon as it passed, he rounded the corner, lining up his shot and pulling the trigger. The wasp shrieked as the heated bullet went straight through it’s large, brown, compound eye, spraying green blood before falling to the floor. Ford wasted no time sticking around and was fleeing the scene before the body hit the ground.

The loud, low buzzing that followed him certainly helped to encourage his legs to move faster.

While he ran, his glasses notified him of another new message. Again, he chose to ignore it.

A thud in front of him. Two shots later, and a wasp was missing two knees. He took another corner and another while he felt more bodies landing around him. A strange grin crept along his face as his heart rate picked up.

Two more Kleptorpians in front now. Four more choice shots and they wouldn’t be following him any time soon. He jumped over the downed bodies as they screamed angrily at him and chanced a glance at his most recent message from Stan.

_Goddamnit, that’s it I’m coming._

Ford let out a small laugh. The sound was loud enough to give away his position and before he knew it, more wasps were surrounding him, closing in. He decided to make his response brief.

“Only if you make one hell of an entrance,” he said, hoping the words would translate across dimensions even with wasp-wing interference. When his HUD notified him it was sent, he smiled wide, eyes on the incoming angry insects. In a flash, his free hand shot into his pocket, pulling out something small and cylindrical, a sharp syringe just visible in the light of the two suns. One of the wasps caught the glint of it and trilled out a command, but it was too late.

Before any of them could lay a claw on him, he had plunged the needle into his leg, grunting at the expected sting. They all seemed to freeze in time for a moment, unsure of what would happen next. Ford, though, just smiled, throwing his arms out before teetering backwards, collapsing into a heap on the floor. He could hear the sound of angry wings as he closed his eyes, letting the serum take effect as the world muffled and darkened around him.  


* * *

  
Ford’s brain fought him as he next returned to consciousness. He could tell it was angry with him, pulling a stunt like that, and he groaned, blinking as he battled against heavy lids. He took a steadying breath, staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling, patiently waiting for his senses to come back to him and the tinnitus faded from his ears. He turned his head, doing his best to ignore the fuzziness around the sides of his vision. He hoped against hope his glasses weren’t _too_ far away. He groped out blindly only to find his hands bound together. As he studied his wrists, he also noticed his jacket missing as well. He frowned and rolled over, testing his body’s wakefulness. He noticed a small table next to… wherever he was, and recognized the blurry outline of his glasses. Reaching out, he grabbed them and fumbled them on, sitting up and looking around more clearly as he did so.

As he figured, he’d been captured by the Kleptorps. He let out a breath at that; the serum he injected into could have gone two different ways; perfectly or disastrously. So far, it was looking like ‘perfectly’; for one thing, he wasn’t dead. That was always a plus. Secondly, he was inside the compound, possibly near the center or the far east wing. Another plus.

What wasn’t a plus was being bound and confined in a small - albeit clean - cell of the hive. A clear film kept him within the cell, giving him plenty of view out into the larger room, and giving the large wasps a chance to observe him. At the moment, only one wasp was puttering around; it was smaller than the ones outside, and Ford figured it was one of the nurse-types that never left the nest. He watched it fly here and there, visiting various consoles and screens, making small noises to itself. Ford listened carefully, but there was only so much he could try to discern. A lot of their language was incommunicable for a human, and the rest of it was pheromone-based. All in all, it made any kind of human-Kleptorp interactions frustrating at best and deadly at worst.

He watched the nurse for a while, but when she didn’t take note of him, he looked around his cell, taking everything in. While not particularly accommodating for his species, he couldn’t help but admire how pristine and exact everything was. The hivemind was clearly an efficient machine and Ford was more surprised that wasps in his own dimension hadn’t evolved as far as they clearly had here. He was just beginning to pass the time by imagining what sort of circumstances allowed _Vespidae_ to go the way it had on this Earth when he saw movement near the film. He turned to see the nurse break a simple seal and enter, closing the seal seamlessly behind her. Ford stiffened as she got close, but he could hardly fight her off, with his hands bound and his weapons missing. She skittered over to him, clicking her mandibles as she studied him up close. He did his best not to jerk away as her antennae moved over him lightly.

Ford just swallowed, letting her go about her business. He knew what she was doing - she was _smelling_ him. This was typical wasp behavior, he knew it from his own Earth; a lot of ants and bees used scent in identification. He also knew it could spell instant acceptance or instant death, depending on the smell. Small clawed hands tugged at his sweater and her clicking picked up, as if in confusion. Her large eyes seemed to stare at him, perplexed, as her antenna flew over his body. She trilled out a few choice noises, punctuating them in places. He bit his cheek, doing his best to suppress a grin or a laugh.

His earlier hypothesis had been correct; he had fooled the hive. The injection had been a mixture of anti-venom and pheromones, but it wasn’t until he encountered a horde of Kleptorps that he would have known if his mixture was correct or dead wrong. Though it was stronger than he had anticipated, it had done the job; they didn’t know what to do with him because he _smelled like them_ but was also running around killing them. Hence his current imprisonment. Which was fine; imprisonment was something he could easily figure out and deal with.

Better than the alternative surely; aka being torn piece by bloody piece because he smelled like the enemy.

The nurse pulled away, apparently satisfied with her inspection of the human before her. She trilled out some words to herself again, pulling out a tablet from the bag strapped to her abdomen and making a few notes. Ford watched her carefully as she turned away, going to the film and undoing the invisible seal once again.

He moved fast, catlike, and in an instant he was on her. She shrieked out in fright but his hands were on her slim, unprotected neck in an instant. He felt something crunch in his large grip and the nurse went still. He didn’t know if he had killed her or simply knocked her out, but he wasn’t going to stick around to find out. Carefully, he slipped through the film. It was smooth and slightly sticky in his hands, and once he was through, it sealed back up in an instant, hard and tough and impenetrable. He studied it for a moment, committing it to memory, before turning his attention to the rest of the room.

There were monitors everywhere and all of them seemed to either have the wasp’s alien writing on them or random images of the complex. Here and there images of himself, other Kleptorps, and surveillance flashed across the screens. He frowned at each one before looking away and focusing on the table in the center of the room. On it sat a few sharp-looking utensils; he grabbed a particularly pointy one and worked at the sticky binds around his wrists. They didn’t cut easily, as waxy as they were, but he got through them eventually, the bind breaking with a satisfying snap. He rubbed his wrists and pocketed the utensil; he never knew when he would need it.

Now that he was free, he instantly back himself against the wall and shimmied his way to the door. When no wasps were in sight, he scampered out, keeping his body low. He seemed to be in a hallway; the interior reminded him of the paper wasp nests he broke open as a kid with Stan, when they were idiots and thought sticks would be enough to battle against hundreds of stings. Nowadays, Ford knew better; you needed something bigger and better than a stick to take out angry, flying, stinging hornets.

Or perhaps, something smaller, something on the inside. Something like a mite, or an ant. Or an intruding imitation human.

He ran along the hallway, pausing whenever he would come across any entrance or opening. He was all too aware that he had no idea where he was, and was basically running blind. He wouldn’t even know if an alarm had been raised because it would be silent, sent out through the hivemind.

He came across an opening to his right and peered inside. The dark entrance said nobody else was inside, so he jumped in, catching his breath and laying low. He had no idea where the rest of the nest was, but the lack of any other Kleptorpians was unsettling. He could have sworn the nest was busier than this.

Carefully, quietly, Ford tried his HUD display. If Stanley had left him any other messages, he would get them, as long as his phone was on somewhere in the nest. He peered carefully at the messages center; nothing. Ford sucked in a breath as his chest tightened. _Okay, that could mean anything,_ he told himself, trying to stay calm. _Maybe he’s not in this dimension yet, that’s totally plausible. No idea how long I’ve been out. If he did travel here though…_ He quickly glanced through his other notifications, looking for anything he could work with. He breathed out as he saw something there.

_Stan Pines (42-D/) entered 732-CA._

Okay so Stan was here. That was good. At least he could plan something until he arrived–

Two more messages appeared while he watched.

_Unknown (42-D/) entered 732-CA._

_Unknown (42-D/) entered 732-CA._

His chest tightened as every nerve caught fire. Two other people had used Stan’s gun? And just now? His mind flipped through the possibilities of who could have followed Stan into the dimension - who could have possibly been able to find out -

A heavy, angry clicking could be heard outside the door and Ford flattened against the wall, HUD lights dying as he tried to disappear in the gloom. He eased the utensil out of his pocket, readying it in his fingers in case of a fight. He swallowed and watched the shadow in the doorframe carefully; if the clicking outside was a soldier and not just a nurse, he had double scythes and a very large stinger to worry about.

The Kleptorpian seemed preoccupied however - as it stood there, it stiffened, jerking its head around. Ford held his breath as the Kleptorp shrieked angrily and flew off, leaving Ford’s hiding spot in search of better prey. Through the thin walls of the nest he could hear the sound of huge wings whirring and he waited, unmoving, until the cacophony of noise inside the nest died down. As it did, he let out a breath, grinning despite himself. This job may have been riskier than the price point suggested but that didn’t matter anymore because backup had just arrived.

Nothing was as distracting (or as devastating) as Stan Pines in a bad mood.

He gathered himself up and sprinted through the hallway, making sure to try his best to move the opposite direction of where all the wasps were going. He still wasn’t entirely sure where he was headed, but it felt like something inside was pulling him towards a particular spot, and with nothing else to go on, he rolled with it. Eventually he came to the end of the hallway, which opened up into a huge, vast inner chamber. In the center, the tower of the once-human-building jutted upwards, giving the whole structure the beam that supported it all. From the central shaft, all the layers and levels jutted out, which split off into circular combs and hallways much like the one he exited out of. He went to the edge and peered over; noises could be heard from the lower levels. If he had to guess, his brother was down below, causing his usual mess of destruction and mayhem. He worked his jaw, unsure of how well Stan was handling everything until a small explosion rocked everything, causing the whole structure to creak unhappily.

Ford shook his head and turned away, grinning. He was handling himself just fine.

What was catching his attention now, however, was the central building before him. It was tall and almost indistinguishable; the combs covered it in chunks, melding with the metal and glass in a strange marriage of biology and machinery. That strange pull called him to the center and he set his shoulders, powering forward. Carefully, he traversed one of the connecting spires, making sure not to look down until he was on the other side. As soon as he landed in the tower, it was like a pressure was building in his ears - as if he was gaining altitude at a rapid pace. He shook his and tried popping his ears to little avail. Somewhere downstairs, another explosion shook the place, causing dust to fall from the ceiling. Ford scowled down at the floor; that one sounded closer than the last one. If he wanted this job done, he’d have to work fast.

Slowly, he made his way through the rooms, carefully looking in each one before entering. And one after another, all were empty, looking recently deserted. Ford knew this shouldn’t be worrisome - there was a fight going on downstairs, after all - but it caused his stomach to churn. Where was everyone? He knew thousands of Kleptorps maintained this hive alone - surely they couldn’t all be downstairs? As soon as the uncertainty flashed across his brain, it was soothed away with a whisper in his ear. He jerked his head at the sensation but something settled over him, calming him down. _It is fine, just keep coming this direction_ , a faraway voice told him, and he agreed, thinking of how silly it was to be worrying about where everyone else was. They were doing their jobs; he needed to do his. It was just a stroke of luck and his brother downstairs that kept his path so spectacularly clear.

The humm in his brain only increased with every step, every room he entered. Every now and then he would shake it off, as if a strange fly was in his ear and he just couldn’t get it out and swat it away. Eventually, he reached what looked like a research lab - and on one of the tables lay his equipment and jacket. His heart practically skipped as he hurried over to it, quickly checking everything over, making sure it was all intact. As his lock ensured, nobody had touched or been able to open anything of his, but it all lit up under his fingertips. He smirked and wasted no time putting everything on and getting everything together. As he threw his jacket on and straightened its shoulders, he heard shouts and yelling. A sense of clarity came over him as he pulled his pistol out, holding it at the ready.

_You’re so close now._

He burst into the next room, holding his pistol at eye level, but he dropped it slightly when a jolt in his brain told him to do so. He shook his head again and held a hand to his ear, squinting around as the room came back into focus. When he finally saw what he had been trying to aim at, he frowned, gritting his teeth.

Sitting before him, doted on by her nurses, was the Queen.

The sound in his head intensified, but he chewed his cheek, doing his best to not let it get to him. He set his shoulders, lifting the gun back up to eye level. A loud, soft voice in his head protested this action and his arm shook, but he did his best not to lower it. He took a step forward, and then another.

The nurses scattered and came for him, trying to overwhelm him. He shot down the first two and sliced the legs of the other three apart with his knife, finishing them off with a bullet between their compound eyes. After that was done, he stepped over their bodies and closed in on the Queen, gun ready.

Without all the nurses surrounding her, Ford could get a better look at her and his nose recoiled at the sight. She was like the other Kleptorpians, but her body was twice as large and at least twice as full. Her abdomen was huge and swollen and while she looked as if she couldn’t handle herself, Ford knew better. She wasn’t a Queen for nothing.

She turned her massive head to him, looking - for all a Kleptorpian could look - nonplussed and oddly serene. As he neared her, the voice in his head calmed him, soothing him. Without a word, without even a real thought, Ford dropped a knee and lowered his gaze.

“Queen,” he said, simply. The words sounded far away and muffled in his ears,  a buzzing fuzz overtaking everything else. He shook his head and blinked, trying to focus.

_“You shouldn’t fight it so hard, human.”_

His jaw clenched and the ringing in his ear increased. He wasn’t sure if the sound was coming from the Queen herself or inside his own skull, it was so loud, so encompassing. He did his best to stand back up, but found his body unable to move. Dimly he heard shouts and gunfire, but couldn’t tell if they were close or far away.

“Bet you think I’m pretty clever, getting all the way in here,” he said snidely. “killing all your little babies.” As a response the Queen just twitched her antenna, hands resting on her oversized knees. Somewhere he heard a laugh so loud it reverberated in his very chest. A bead of sweat dripped down and slid under his sweater collar.

_“Dear boy, my workers are always expendable. What matters is the whole, for it is greater than even the sum of it’s parts.”_ The Queen lifted one of her arms and Ford’s body rose with it. The white noise in his skull was so great that he couldn’t tell anymore if it was her or himself making his body do that. The small section of his brain that cared about those sort of things was increasingly getting shut down. The Queen watched him intently and he glared back, finding her easier to focus on.

_“You think yourself so clever. But I know why you are here, Stanford Pines.”_ The buzz in his brain was so encapsulating that his vision blanked for a second, causing him to gasp. When his eyes came to again, he was vaguely amazed to find himself still standing, facing the Queen. _“I know everything, I have seen everything. Which is why I brought you to me.”_

His body stiffened as his vision blurred again, causing him to stagger. The tinnitus increased in his ears, drowning out the shouts and the sounds of fighting getting steadily closer. The Queen cocked her head and twitched her antennae, looking all the world like a giant mutated dog.

_“Why do you try and fight?”_ Her voice rang in his body and he gasped, unable to move. _“There is so much I could show you, so many secrets my kin can share, you would be one of a kind, so much better than before…”_

Images flashed through his brain, unbidden, and he yelled out, trying to stem the clash of memories that fought against his own. Emotions collided with his as the Queen fought her way into his brain, clawing for dominance. He saw flashes of his own memories, fighting to the forefront, memories of Stan and the boat, of Fiddleford and his portal, of falling through, of fighting opposition, of hospital rooms and bloodstained hands, of his brother on him, the heat of his body on his, then Stan’s body destroyed in front of him… They then melted into emotions and memories of glittering wings, of feeding on honey, growing and consuming competition, of clawing to the top, of warring against other hives against other humans and god the anger, the rage, _the bloodlust…_

He heard laughter in his ears, but whose laughter it was, he couldn’t be sure. All he knew is he had never felt so pure, so wild in so long, as if it had been a lifetime since he had been this free. It was as if everything made sense, everything was clear; for the first time he knew his purpose, he knew why he was called to something higher, it all came to this, to this wonderful feeling and something large and warm in his mind hummed in pure satisfaction. He grinned, letting the feeling flood all the way down to his bones.

A shout cut through the fog, and both him and the Queen turned, looking for the source. He felt his face pull into a frown at the sight of another human, another intruder. This wouldn’t be allowed; the Queen only wanted _him._ He was the special one, the one that would no longer be suffocated under the boot of his limited humanity. He was part of something more now.

He heard his name. He growled out in frustration and at the behest of his Queen he stepped forward. He needed to take care of this immediately, before things got out of hand. In a flash, his pistol was at the ready, pointed straight for the other man’s heart.

Through his sharpened haze, he saw the man stop, putting up his hands. He thought he heard other words, other phrases, saw two other smaller figures come into view but he didn’t care. They didn’t matter now. The man’s one eye was wide, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He grinned; of course he couldn’t believe what he saw; no human had been assimilated before. And what a wonderful feeling it was. The Queen purred in his ear and he smiled, happy to follow her command, her direction. It was the best direction after all - she knew through millions of years of intelligence and instinct how to build a better world.

Anyone in her way was to be eliminated.

A yell, a scream, and a piercing shriek all sounded out at the same time. The man formerly known as Stanford grinned, aiming his gun and pulling the trigger.


	5. Chapter 5

Stan had figured his brother would want to kill him, but in his mind it was more of a figurative than a literal interpretation of the phrase. He had figured there’d be some yelling and gesticulating, sure, because it was pretty counter-intuitive to say ‘hey let’s _not_ bring the kids on one of our crazy adventures’ and yet appear to save the day and see both of them had managed to scramble along for the ride.

He still was kicking himself mentally for that; he had clearly been too tired and too rushed when he went through the portal he had created because somehow the kids had found it and somehow figured out how to work it and somehow come into this dimension. It was good his communicator gave him a heads up, or those kids would have been Kleptorpian bait in minutes. He had been furious about it originally - more with himself than with the kids - but now he was just more surprised at how well they pulled their own weight. Neither twin was a bad shot, for how young they were, and it was good for Stan to have someone watching his back. That teamwork had gotten them all the way to the middle of the hive still alive and relatively unharmed, but with this new predicament their luck may have finally run out.

In front of him stood his brother, Ford - eyes cold, grin colder, and the barrel of a gun staring him down.

Behind Stan, the kids trudged their way into the room excitedly.  
  
“Okay Dipper but you have to agree, seeing their heads EXPLODE is AWESOME!!”  
  
“Mabel it’s just gross - oh my gosh- Grunkle Ford!”  
  
Stan’s mouth twitched and he took a step back, throwing out an arm to stop the kids in their tracks. Both of them complained at first, but he shot them a venomous look from over his shoulder. That was enough to shut them right up, and they looked between their two grunkles, realization setting in.

“Okay you two, listen and listen good. That’s not Ford.” He tried to speak as hushed as possible; he knew his brother couldn’t hear him but he didn’t want to chance anything, not with that giant queen looming right over Ford’s shoulder.

“N-not-?” he heard Dipper stammer. Stan simply nodded.

“I’m gonna deal with this one, okay? Dipper - you watch the door, this could get nasty. Mabel, as soon as I get Ford, you take a shot as fast as you can at that Queen.”  
  
Dipper nodded and Mabel grinned, pulling a small, cylindrical canister out of her sweater. Stan nodded at them, and then turned back to his brother. Ford was eyeing him carefully, his grin never wavering. As it spread, Stan saw his finger tighten on the gun’s trigger.  
  
“Get down!” Stan yelled as he pushed both of them down. Mabel cried out and Dipper got the message, yelping as he ran for the door. Stan waited for the inevitable sound of an energized bullet sizzling into the floor, or waiting for the sting on his flesh…

…but there was nothing.

He looked back up grinned as the Queen shrieked out loudly and violently. Ford’s face mirrored her angered confusion - but Stan didn’t spend a second contemplating what had happened. Instead he was charging forward, sending a fast elbow straight for his brother’s chin, grabbing for the gun with the other hand. Ford’s head snapped backwards as the blow connected and Stan flung the firearm to the side and far away from the fight. He then pulled Ford towards him by the collar, moving him away from the Queen. Over his shoulder, he started barking out loud orders.  
  
“Dipper, she’s mad– watch that door! Remember they’re just giant bugs, don’t worry about shooting at them! Mabel – _NOW_ would be a great time!”  
  
“Aye-aye, Grunk Number 1!” Mabel shouted back. She pressed a button on the cylinder she had been carrying, lobbing it up and straight towards the Queen Kleptorpian. He didn’t get to see much else though; there was a deep growl in his ear before he felt a punch straight to the side of his face, sending him reeling. Stan twisted and saw Ford glaring at him with venomous eyes. They had taken on a white sheen, causing Stan to shudder. Ford reared back and went for another blow; Stan easily side-stepped it and grabbed his arm, pulling him off his feet and throwing him over his shoulder. Ford’s body hit the ground with a hard thud, but Stan didn’t stop there. He grabbed his brother by the coat, pulling him up and dragging him away from the very angry giant queen wasp. And if Stan’s count was correct, she was about to get even angrier.

Two small explosions went off, the first louder and stronger than the second. The queen screeched in anger and Stan threw an arm up, protecting himself from the blast. From outside the room, he could hear the unmistakable hum of multiple wings heading straight towards them. They wouldn’t have much time to get this right.

To make things worse, Ford stirred next to him, his hands digging into his neck and shoulders. Stan grunted and grabbed his arms, grappling Ford as best he could. The queen’s influence on him definitely made him angrier and stronger, but it was clear she didn’t enhance his hand-to-hand abilities.

“Come on Ford, get yer head out of that bitch’s ass and come to your senses.” He struggled to get the words out, to look Ford in the eye; they were so alien now, so unlike his twin’s dark brown. “I don’t want to hurt you if I don’t have to.” 

At that, Ford laughed. It was grittier and more warbled than usual, and it sent a chill up Stan’s spine.

“There is no ‘ _Ford_ ’ now, there is only the Queen. And she’ll tell you her senses are plenty sharp.”  Stan gritted his teeth as Ford pushed against him. It was definitely worse than he expected.

“Welp, no helping this, then,” Stan mumbled out nonchalantly, and he let his grip go slack just enough. Ford, thinking this was an opening, swiped out towards Stan’s face - but Stan just dodged, grabbed his arm, pulled his brother down, and landed a hard elbow straight to the base of his skull. As Stan suspected, Ford shuddered and went limp in his arms. Once he was sure his brother was still breathing, he turned his attention fully back to the bigger bug problem in front of him.

Mabel was dancing around the Queen, distracting her and keeping her from Stan and Ford’s fight. The Queen, increasingly angrier and angrier, bristled, unable to move fast enough or close enough to actually reach Mabel as she shrieked and moved from place to place. Dipper, for how brave he was, was trying his best to stop the large soldiers with only about half success. A few were getting past; heading straight for Stan. He frowned and pulled the assault rifle off his back, downing a few of the bugs before they got to him with those deadly scythes.

“Dipper, pull back, they want me, not you, so don’t get hurt! Mabel, provide him with support!” Both of them shouted affirmatives back to him and Dipper pulled away, ducking behind some machinery to gain cover. Mabel joined him. With the door open, the bugs came more readily, their mad buzzing filling the room with deafening sound. They were slowed when Mabel threw out more bombs, causing an explosion big enough to block the main entrance.

Stan grinned as he shot down bugs one by one. He had never imagined Mabel as taking so well to pyrotechnics, but it sure made sense when he thought about it. The girl was random and fun and never exact; just like a bomb. He didn’t have much time to ponder it though as he was overwhelmed with giant wasp after giant wasp, stingers forward and scythes lashing. One by one, he blew them off, his fire-laced rounds easily taking care of their hard carapaces. Before he knew it, he was finally rid of them all and face to face with an angry, glittering Queen.

“Looks like all your toys are broken,” he sneered at her, and she screeched, lunging at him. He grunted and simply pulled his energy blade out as she overtook him. The kids shouted out to him as he went down to the ground, hands pinned under clawed limbs. The Queen hovered over him, pushing him down, mandibles snapping. He kicked at her head but she recovered fast, bringing another limb down on his stomach. He twisted under the pressure, but grinned up at her face, unperturbed.

“Man, not only are you ugly up close, but your breath stinks too,” he growled out, hoping his goading would cause her to slip up- make a mistake. It worked; she hissed, pulling a leg up and over him, hoping to press the claws deep into his skull, leaving her wide open and giving Stan plenty of time to punch her square in the head. As he did so he activated his blade, squeezing the handle tight.

He heard a horrible squelching sound and a garbled, wet noise come out of the Queen as the blade sliced through her hard carapace, cleaving her face in two. She stumbled off of him, the blade still stuck in her. It continued to sizzle, the energy eating away at her visage as she shook and shuddered and worked to get the blade out of her head. Stan didn’t give her the opportunity; four shots later and the Queen was down, body shuddering, the sounds of her death escaping her jaws as she twisted and twitched while the fiery bullets ate away at her insides. Stan watched grimly, lip curling in disgust at the sight.

“That was for Ford, you vile excuse for a sentient race,” he spit out. Around him in the hive, the buzzing stopped, replaced with the sounds of confused trilling and a lot of frantic footfalls. Stan huffed out a sigh and stepped over the Queen’s smoking carapace, hurrying over to where the kids were hiding. As he approached, Mabel popped her head over the console, tugging her brother up as she did so.

“Hey you two. You guys okay?”

“Yeah, we’re okay,” Dipper said, rubbing his arm. Stan pulled them out tenderly and looked them over carefully, searching for every scratch and bruise. They were dirty, sure, and had a few scrapes here and there, but luckily, they were relatively unharmed. He let out a breath and smiled, and the kids grinned back.

“Grunkle Stan that was SO AMAZING!!” Mabel said, bouncing up and down. Her sweater was stained with the green blood of the Kleptorpians, but she didn’t seem to care. “I can’t believe we just took out a WHOLE BEE’S NEST!” Stan just chuckled, standing up after his inspection and placing his hands on his hips.

“Yeah well, all in a day’s work. Gotta say, as mad as I am for you guys sticking your nose where they don’t belong, you didn’t do half bad. Good work.” He punched Dipper’s arm lightly for effect and the 12-year-old blushed and smiled, but it faded as his eyes drifted over to where Ford lay.

“Thanks but… what about Grunkle Ford?” At that, Stan just sighed and rolled his eyes.

“C’mon,” he said, and waved the kids to follow him. They crept behind him as he walked over and stood over Ford. He raised his good eyebrow and folded his arms frowning down at his brother. Then, his boot darted out, giving his brother a swift kick to the ribs. A groan escaped him but nothing else. The kids gasped and hid behind Stan but Stan was unperturbed. Rolling his eyes, he kicked Ford again.

“Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey,” Stan drawled out, and Ford coughed and stirred, groaning heavily as he pushed himself up. He grabbed his head and shook it, blinking blearily up at Stan. His eyes were back to their usual color, which was a good sign.

“…Stan?” he started, but as soon as the word left him, the kids cheered and jumped on him, pinning him back to the floor. The wind knocked out of him, he would only gape wordlessly, glasses eskew. Stan laughed as the kids scrambled over their uncle, saying different things all too quickly.

“Grunkle Ford, you’re okay!”

“There were so many bee-people! Do you and Grunkle Stan always -”

“We came looking for you because we were worried and then you were under mind control and-“

“I am the _GOD OF DESTRUCTION_ , Grunkle Ford! Oh, the sweaters I’ll knit-”

“Can that portal go anywhere? Could we go to OUTER SPACE with that portal gun? How long have you guys -”

“COVERED IN BEES!”

Stan laughed harder as Ford stared between the twins, eyes wide and bewildered. He gave a pleading look at Stan who pulled the kids off of Ford.

“Alright, alright guys, calm down, let the man breathe he just got his senses back, for pete’s sake.” They fought against him, laughing, their spirits significantly higher upon seeing their great uncle okay. Ford, however, was still on the ground, looking between everyone, completely shell-shocked. He gestured helplessly to the twins, shaking his head.

“ _Stan?!_ What -” He started, but Stan just rolled his eyes and held out a hand. Ford tentatively reached out, grabbing it. Stan hummed and pulled him up, cherishing the feeling of Ford’s fingers on his own.

“Come on. We got a lot to catch ya up on.”  
  


* * *

  
Stan was walking behind Ford and the kids, who chatted incessantly while they held his hand and bounced up and down, recounting their earlier adventures before they had come to rescue him. They were still in the hive, walking around the grand central spire and its many levels and passageways. Every now and then, Kleptorpians would fly past, but they paid no mind to the humans in their midst; without their Queen directing them, the wasps were a chaotic mess, listless and without purpose. Eventually, they would all leave to find a different nest, each individual vying for assimilation into a different clan. Some of them would be welcomed… and others would probably be killed on the spot. Their fate didn’t matter to Stan though; nothing would make him happier than if the entire nest rotted and fell away. However, they had some sweet loot to grab before they left the place for good. Which is why they were still in the nest, despite the Queen’s death and Ford’s rescue.

“-So then, Grunkle Stan jumped in and _pa-pow pa-pow!_ Blew off all their heads! Right after that he was pretty mad at us, telling us we shouldn’t be here.”  
  
“Then we got upset, we wondered where you were, Dipper started asking a hundred questions, and Stan just hushed us up and handed us weapons and told us to stick close and not run off. Dipper’s best with the handgun, but I think he’d be better if a gadget aimed for him because his aim is _terrible-_ ”

“Hey! _Mabel_! Not fair!”

“It’s fine; Dipper, when we get back to the lab, I have a scope that will improve your accuracy by 50%. I can equip it to your gun, if you’d like.” 

“Really? Thanks, Grunkle Ford!”

“I still killed more bees than Dipper did though.”

“They’re _wasps_ , Mabel, and you only killed more because you had explosives!”

“Haha, yeah, I did, didn’t I?” Mabel laughed, bouncing up and down. Stan laughed languidly behind them and Ford looked back, a pleading smile on his face. Both kids were dragging him around, chatting endlessly, the adrenaline rush from earlier clearly not settling in them any time soon. Stan just shook his head and grinned back at his twin. He then pulled his communicator out, pressing a button. A hologram of the interior of the nest came up, and he looked at it carefully.

“Alright guys, I think we’re gonna take a right up here. What we’re looking for shouldn’t be too far off now,” he said. They all turned, and a few Kleptorpians buzzed past harmlessly. Stan watched his tiny little 3D map carefully while the kids continued chatting with Ford.

“Hey Great Uncle Ford, I have a question,” he said, for probably the millionth time that night. Stan was pretty sure the kid would never run dry of questions.  
His twin just laughed in response.

“Sure Dipper, go ahead.”

“Well, when you were uh… being controlled by the Queen, you tried to shoot us.” Ford stiffened a bit but kept walking. Stan frowned at him and watched him carefully, but Ford didn’t show any other signs of discomfort.

“Yes I- I vaguely remember something like that happening.”

“Well, your gun didn’t work. Why?”

At this, Ford eased considerably and a smile spread across his face. “Oh, excellent question! That’s because all of my weapons only react to my unique biosignature! Even other Fords can’t use it, because they are all just slightly different from me.”

“Wait what? Other For-”

“The Queen was controlling me and had invaded my mind.” Ford kept going as if he hadn’t heard the other question. “It must have changed my biosignature just enough for the gun to register as a different Ford. Thus, the gun didn’t activate. It’s a great bit of science that stops the enemy from using or studying my weapons.”

“Yeah that makes sense but… ‘other Fords?’” he asked again, but Ford just waved him off.

“Fords from other dimensions, don’t worry about it, Dipper. If all goes well, you won’t run into any of them.”

“Most of them are dumb jerks anyway,” Stan mumbled from behind them, and Dipper turns back, opening his mouth as if he’s going to ask more questions. But Stan just looks up at the room they’re about to pass, and mildly states, “Oh, good, we found it.”

Stan crossed the threshold of the room, looked up, and grinned wide. It was huge and expansive, filled from floor to ceiling with rows and rows of glistening, filled combs. And what those combs were filled with looked suspiciously like…

“Woah! _Honey!”_ Mabel gasped out, running forward. Stan followed her in, arms stretched out wide and a wicked grin on his face.

“Not just honey… _Liquid Gold!”_  Dipper followed his sister into the room and they laughed, trying to see if they could access the sweet nectar. However, when Mabel went to scoop her hand in and try some, Stan grabbed her shoulder, pulling her back.

“Woah, hang on there Pooh-Bear, this stuff ain’t for eatin’, not at all.”

“What? How come?”

“Because it’s a Grade DD hallucinogenic drug in its purest form, that’s why,” Ford explained, pulling a small cube out of his pocket. He then pressed a button and the cube opened, revealing a small opening in the world. Dipper and Mabel gasped as Ford stuck his hand in and rummaged about, until finally pulling out glass jar after glass jar.

“And we’re going to collect some of this honey so that we can sell it,” He said, with a huge grin. “Just a drop of pure Kleptorpian honey can go for a thousand of our dollars. Sure, the person who paid us to take out the Kleptorpian Queen is paying us well, but this here is the _real_ prize of this excursion.”

“Wait a second,” Dipper said, eyes watching them with a squint. “These are drugs and you’re just going to sell them to other people? Won’t they get hurt?” At that though, Ford just shrugged.

“Maybe if they take too much, but our buyers are _good_ payers. Most aren’t looking to OD. Others will refine it for safer consumption. We don’t really read between the lines once it’s gone.” Cheerily, he closed up the small cube and put it away, instead handing out jars. “Now, once we collect enough of the honey, we’ll close it up and head home.”

Dipper looked into his jar, questions still on his face. However, when Ford handed out ladles and honey dippers to help collect the sticky substance, he didn’t ask anything else, and him and his sister ran off to fill their jars.

With the kids preoccupied, Stan took the moment while he could and put a hand on Ford’s shoulder, leading him out of the honey room and down the hall a ways. Ford could barely get a question out before Stan’s lips here on his, fast and rough. Ford had just enough time to hum against the contact when Stan finished the kiss and pushed his brother away by the shoulder, scowling at him with his good eye.

“God Ford, really? A _hive mind?”_ At that, Ford just grinned sheepishly, shrugging his shoulders.

“Guess the pheromones were stronger than I thought. It was their test run after all. Got me in here, but didn’t expect the Queen’s…intrusion.” Stan folded his arms and looked him over carefully.

“And you’re okay? No…lingering aftereffects? Do I need to worry about you trying to kill me in the middle of the night of something?” Ford shook his head but thought over the question a bit before responding.

“Hmmm, nothing that I can sense. Now that the Queen’s dead, my brain is my own. A bit of a headache, but I’m not sure if that’s from her or from you. Just how did you incapacitate me, by the way?” Stan shrugged at that.

“Simple elbow to the base of the skull. You went out like a light.” Ford made a face at that.

“You have no grace. I could have died.” Stan just rolled his eyes in response.

“Oh don’t be _dramatic_. You act like I don’t know what I’m doing. Last I checked, I’m not the one who got possessed by a giant bee.” At that, Ford chewed his jaw, looking down. Stan’s eyebrow furrowed worriedly.

“What?”  
  
“Nothing it’s just…I wasn’t really possessed, Stan. I was still in there, but it was as if I agreed with everything she said. I was okay with it. I didn’t want to tell Dipper, but I pretty much remember everything.”

“What, so you really _did_ want to kill me, is that what you’re saying?”  
  
“No! Yes? Augh, it doesn’t mean I want to kill you _now_ , Stanley, but with the Queen in my brain… every thought that was hers felt like my own. There wasn’t a difference between them. My individuality was gone, but my memories of it are still there.”

“But you’re okay,” Stan said curtly.

“I’d let you know if I wasn’t.”

Stan grunted out a noncommittal sound and dropped it at that. After a beat, his arm darted out lightly, punching against Ford’s shoulder. His hand lingered on the coat, rubbing softly at the fabric and the arm underneath.

“Ya gotta stop being my damsel in distress, Sixer.”  Ford twitched out a grin.

“What, not exciting enough for you to come out and save me after all these years?” He took a step and leaned into Stan’s personal space. Stan grinned back.

“Nah, just figured you’d learn your lesson by now,” he said with a shrug. He still pulled Ford closer though, as naturally as could be. Ford was just inches away now, the promise of connecting lips lingering between them.

“Well, maybe you should teach me some -”

“Grunkle Ford! Grunkle Stan! We got all the honey we could! And I promise we didn’t eat any!”

Mabel’s head popped out into the hallway and Stan’s arm extended, pushing Ford away from him while he leaned casually against the wall. Ford looked over at her, but Stan could see the shadow of a blush rising over his cheeks. She looked between them quickly and grinned. Stan and Ford smiled back.

“Sounds great sweetie, we’ll be right there,“ Ford told her calmly.  “That way we can stuff them back inside my portable tear in space-time and then head home.” Mabel beamed at her great uncles before skipping back inside and yelling something to Dipper. As soon as she ducked out of sight, Ford let out a breath.

“Gonna take a while to get used to sneaking around again.” He said lightly.

“Eh, we’ll be fine. Just keep it close to the vest, ya know? Besides…” Stan gave Ford’s butt a mischievous pat. “I know someone who desperately in need of a hot shower and a shave later.”

“Ew, Stan don’t be gross,” he said with a laugh.

“Me? _Gross?_ I’m not the one who smells like they rolled in the carcass of a possum that’s been _dead_ for a month!” Stan shouted as he walked back into the honey room. The kids heard him and laughed while Ford loudly complained, packing everything up they had gathered back into his portable space-time tear.

Then, when there was nothing else to pack and they were all checked over, Ford pulled out his own portal gun, which he always carried with him. He set the dimension, pulled the trigger, and let the portal settle before leading his new family through and back to their own safe dimension. 


	6. Chapter 6

It was early morning by the time they got back to the house and back upstairs. They were all exhausted, the kids not having slept for hours and all of them fighting off giant bugs for the sake of a paycheck. While Dipper and Mabel had been hyped up on adrenaline during the return trip home, as reality sank back in so did the tiredness, so Ford nudged them up to bed to get some well-deserved rest. Stan took it upon himself to wake the slumbering Soos, who had been snoring on the couch in front of the television. He gently gave him the day off and followed him out, making sure  to keep the “CLOSED” sign firmly in sight, so they could all recuperate for the next 24 hours.

After the kids were tucked away, Ford left gently, pulling the attic door closed with a click. He listened for Stan; it sounded as if he was still down in the gift shop, chatting with Soos, the soft murmurs of their voices drifting up the stairs. As silently as possible, he turned and walked down the hallway, moving towards the bedroom he shared with Stan, pausing to check his watch as he did so.

He frowned down at it and moved it 7 hours forward.

Portal travel was like jumping time zones – except it was an instantaneous switch that could be more than disorienting at times. It was one of his bigger equations that he was working on, one whose answer still eluded him. How did inter-dimensional travel and time measure up? How did they affect one another? The issue was that different dimensions had different time gaps from this one; some were just a few minutes, others were a few days. Ford did his best to keep close track of all of it, jotting down the hours in his communicator before he forgot.

He frowned deeper as he entered the master bedroom, turning the numbers over in his head. He absently pulled equations up as he pulled clothing off, trying to suss out where this new piece of information may fit in with what he had already mentally parsed together. His body fell into autopilot as he moved to the large bathroom attached to their room, the equation taking residence in his thoughts completely. After turning the shower on and waiting for it to warm up, he went to the sink, pulling open one of the drawers and pulling out a small vial, a tube of paste, and an instrument reminiscent of a glaucoma reader. He then put it to the butt of his thumb, winced, and pulled it away, taking a tiny skin sample with it. He put that sample in the vial, screwing the lid on and muttering a few words to himself. He then paused, shook his head, put a small bit of the paste on his wounded thumb, and got into the shower.

He closed his eyes under the barrage of warm water, his head now throbbing from trying to figure out the equation. He already had a headache from the Queen’s intrusion and Stan’s intervention, and this wasn’t helping the issue one bit. However, as hard as could try he knew he couldn’t stop it; his brain went a million miles an hour and he just had to hang on for the ride and do his best to keep up. It didn’t help that he did this pretty much every time he got home from dimension-jumping. It also didn’t help that the results always confused him more than it cleared anything up.

In general, Ford was incredibly interested in the effects of dimensional travel on the human body. If time was affected, how did their bodies cope? If time was the overall change of atoms and the dispersal of energy, how did their cells take these instant jumps through space-time? How was epigenetics affected? Did it affect Stan and him differently?

But, most importantly, just how _old_ were they, really?

Ford frowned and, as was his routine, tested all his joints and limbs while he cleaned himself off. There was a crack and a pain here or there, but nothing too dragging. Which, sure, he and Stan kept up good form, but for their age they really should feel more aches and pains than they clearly did. For goodness sakes, they had turned 58 this year, if the date on the calendar was correct.

And yet…

According to the math and biological data, their bodies didn’t think they were that old at all. It always made him nervous to think about, but portal hopping had added literal _years_ to their lives. Not that many, sure, but enough to be substantial and as they aged that difference only grew more pronounced. Furthermore, he had no idea how far that addition extended. They could be outliving their entire generation by a decade or more if they kept this pace up, disregarding their high propensity for bodily harm or bullet wounds that do them in at any time.

As if they hadn’t already had their fair share of close calls in the past.

The sound of a door opening and a shadow passing over the curtain pulled Ford out of his head. He turned to watch Stan’s shadow, watching him stop at the sink before proceeding to use the bathroom for its intended purpose. Ford, for his part, twitched out an unseen smile and went back to washing his hair. He waited for the flush before striking up a conversation.

“Were the kids asleep when you came in?” Ford asked absently, his voice echoing in the space of the bathroom. Stan just huffed out a small laugh in reply.

“Yeah, but I didn’t stick my head in all the way, just peeked to see how they were doing.” A pause. Ford opened an eye and looked toward his form through the curtain. “You took _another_ sample?” The question was laced with annoyance and Ford rolled his eyes.

“Yes, and I should probably grab a small one off of you too before it gets too late.”

“You know just because we’re twins doesn’t mean –”

“Science is only accurate if the results can be _duplicated_ , Stanley,” Ford reminds him irritably, shoving his hair under the hot stream to rinse it out. “And it just so happens to be a nice coincidence that we _are_ identical twins and it may make for a great twin study if I could just figure out the significance of portal travel on the human body.”

Ford could practically hear Stan rolling his eyes on the other side of the curtain. “I wonder what that published paper would be like. ‘Extended research shows interdimensional travel lengthens lifespan! The true fountain of youth is actually just one portal-hop away.’” A huffed out laugh. “Maybe it would get all the chumps here to move to that one dimension with the giant fire-breathing swamptoads.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, they don’t deserve such a vacation hotspot,” Ford retorted back, shutting the water off and pulling the curtain back just far enough to grab for a towel. He glanced over at Stan; it was a blurred image despite his distance, but Ford could still see him taking a tiny skin sample from his thumb and placing it in a different vial. Ford smiled and pulled himself back into the shower, drying off. “Clearly they all would be much happier on Desmond-13, with its three suns and never-ending days. Oh, and the blistering 130 degrees Celsius! Great for the complexion.”

“You spent a week trying to get us environmental suits that could handle it. What a job _that_ was.” Ford stepped out of the shower while Stan talked, towel around his waist, shaking his hair out. He heard Stan hum in approval as he grabbed his glasses and shot him an eyebrow. “Much better, you don’t look or smell like a giant insect now.”

“Yes, much to your chagrin, I won’t be turning into a giant bee any time soon,” Ford said with a smirk. He checked his reflection and frowned, running a hand over the scratchy hair that had started growing over the last 4 days he was gone. “Ah, hmm, I really do need a shave. I should try out that new heat-powered razor I created for those folks in dimension H-17.”

He made to get up and grab some clothes but Stan grabbed his arm, rooting him in place. The look on his face made Ford’s heart flutter uncomfortably.

“Yeah right, you’re not using that piece of crap on your face,” Stan grumbled out, and Ford couldn’t help the affronted expression that crossed across his face. “‘Piece of crap’?! Stan I designed that blade to be faster and more efficient at shaving and–”

“Yeah yeah, Poindexter,” he said, pulling ford gently over to the toilet. He put the seat down and planted Ford down as he pursed his lips and scowled up at him. He glanced to his right; it was only now that he saw the bowl and brush and straight razor Stan used on his own jawline. Which was fine for Stan but Ford, for all his dexterity with tools and engineering, never felt safe with such a thing so close to his jugular.

“Stan you are _not_ shaving me, I think I can do that myself, but thanks for such a wonderful offer.”

Stan just chuckled and pulled a stool over from the far end of the bathroom. He then sat down across from Ford and worked the lather up in the bowl, humming under his breath all the while.

“Come on, you could use a close shave, and your hair is longer than usual. Trust me, this will be better than your heat-powered gizmo downstairs.” Ford grumbled and fidgeted and didn’t meet Stan’s eye. He played with his extra finger, leg bouncing.

“It’s safer,” Ford said under his breath, but was cut off by Stan pulling his chin back towards him gently. Ford met his eye and the look on his face made the heat pool in his stomach. He suddenly became very aware he was only wearing a towel while his twin was still in a white t-shirt and pants. Ford glanced away and when he looked back, his face had softened. A brush heavy with lather was waiting in his other hand.

“Hey, Ford, you trust me, right?”

Ford sighed through his nose. “Yes, of course,” he mumbled.

“And have I ever destroyed my own neck with my razor?”

“No,” Ford mumbled again, even quieter.

“So can you trust me to not hurt you too?”

Ford closed his eyes and tried not to think of sharp knives and the heat of slicing or the ghost of a blade on his skin. He felt his adam’s apple bob against Stan’s hand as he swallowed. His stomach fluttered unpleasantly.

“Hey, don’t think about _that_ , okay?” Ford opened his eyes to look back at his brother, pulling him out of his head. “It’s been years. Don’t worry; It’s only me, and I know exactly what I’m doing.”

He swallowed again but nodded, doing his best to relax. Stan twitched out a smile at that and let go of Ford’s chin. He added some more lather to the brush and Ford closed his eyes as Stan spread the thick white foam across the lower half of his face. It was slightly warm and the brush scratched gently against his chin. Ford hummed out his approval and Stan chuckled and worked his neck with large, soothing strokes.

It was a stupid thing, being scared of knives and sharp edges, but it was one of those fun after-effects Ford had gained over their years of dangerous work. Guns were fine, lasers were nothing, heat he faced without batting an eye and blunt trauma was laughable – but there was something about a sharp weapon that could make Ford’s blood run cold. Luckily - or unluckily, depending on the situation – his aichmophobia was fairly specific; large insectoid scythes were also not too terrifying next to surgical equipment, glinting metallic bits and pieces that could leave a mark without even registering, weapons that left a kiss only to be seen seconds later as a giant pool of blood or a coil of lost intestines. Those were the worst kinds of injuries; the hardest to combat. If a cut was clean enough and in the right place, there was no coming back from it.

He was always amazed that people feared guns when knives and daggers were, by far, much scarier and much, _much_ more deadly.

He could feel his pulse picking up as Stan ghosted the brush over his neck, the blood pounding through his jugular. He looked back up when he felt his twin’s hand on his shoulder, felt the warmth radiating from his fingers, the familiar pressure of the squeeze. They locked eyes and Stan gave him a reassuring smile.

“Now, you can keep your eyes closed the whole time if you’d like. And just let me move you; that way you won’t get scratched.” Ford just looked down and nodded, his fingers resting in his lap. Stan shifted in his peripheral and bent forward to kiss his forehead. The contact alone caused him to hum with affection. Stan pulled away and laughed, moving to get the razor from the counter.

“And for the love of your own neck and skin, _relax_. Won’t do ya any good to be so wound up.”

Ford let out a deep breath and let his body loosen, but that didn’t stop his heart hammering away in his chest as he watched Stan strop the blade. That wouldn’t do, so Ford turned to an old trick that always worked; planting numbers into his favorite mathematical equations and letting his mind wander as he tried to work them out. He closed his eyes and relaxed, letting the physics problems come to mind and take him temporarily out of the bathroom.

He was already working on the middle steps of the Callan-Symanzik equation when he felt Stan’s gentle hands holding his head steady and a new object - one thin and warm and at a perfect 30-degree angle - resting just barely above his right cheek. In one smooth stroke, be felt the object move down his cheek, barely whispering against his skin. Goosebumps erupted on the back of his neck and he swallowed, doing his best to focus on the numbers and not the deadly metal touching his body. He heard Stan make a noise under his breath and felt his head move again, at a better tilt. Ford heard the faint sound of water splashing softly before the object was back on his skin, causing him to involuntarily prickle.

_Alright all I have to do now is calculate the coefficient functions for the regrouping equation and…_

“What’cha thinkin’ about up in at big head of yours,” Stan asked with a hint of humor, as he gently moved Ford’s head under his hands. The blade moved back down and Ford swallowed.

“Trying _not_ to think about an ultra sharp piece of steel running at angle down the side of my cheek,” he said stonily after the razor had been removed and returned to the water for a quick cleaning. Ford caught the light shining off of it and felt his stomach flip. Stan caught his sharp inhale and gave his leg a quick squeeze.

“Seems fair. But too vague. What’s really on your mind, Sixer?”

He held Ford’s head in his hand, squeezing his neck reassuringly before continuing his shave. Ford closed his eyes and let his head go limp in Stan’s grasp, trying to formulate a reply for the next time the blade wasn’t working on his face. He felt the steel trace over his jawline before leaving his skin with a flick, the metal letting off a slight ring.

“Would it bore you if I told you complex physics equations?”

Stan scoffed as he cleaned the blade again, turning Ford’s head to face the other way.

“Yeesh, bringing out the big guns. I’m not shaving you with a _machete_ , Ford. But if it’s helping you out, keep figuring out those brainiac equations of yours. You’re doing great so far.”

The affection of Stan’s words filled his chest as he closed his eyes again. This time though, his brain focused more on Stan’s hand holding his head, pulling a bit at his skin, while the blade barely whispered over his jawline. It sent another shiver through him, but not the bad kind. Instead, he could feel his mind going clear in a way that only being around Stan could accomplish, and he fell into that pool of crystal clear bliss. The next few strokes he barely registered, not until Stan tilted his head up for a new angle and he hummed into the action.

“Hey, you’re getting too comfy there, Poindexter. I wanted you to relax so you wouldn’t freak out, not fall asleep.” The hint of a smile in his words didn’t escape him and he twitched back a grin of his own.

“Sorry, guess I trust you a little _too_ much with a blade to my throat,” Ford rumbled out before Stan took another swipe through the lather.

“Better than you wanting to blast a heated bullet through my brain, so I’ll take what I can get,” Stan murmured quietly. Ford hummed in response, but the words brought back another thought that had been bugging him, one that he had almost completely forgotten about under the relaxing touch of his twin’s capable hands.

“Did anything unusual happen here, while I was gone?” Ford asked. Stan stalled to look at him through his good eye before taking another swipe down the side of Ford’s throat.

“No, nothing. Not a peep, outside the usual customers and Soos blowing a fuse in the box again.” Ford hummed in response, but the sound was shorter and less relaxed now that his gears had started turning again.

“Need to get downstairs and check things over again. I need to figure out how those agents found us or how the security broke-”

“You can look it over if ya want but I already did; nothing was out of place, nothing was leaked.” Stan cleaned the razor off again, but put a careful eye on Ford’s face. “Got any ideas?”

Ford shook his head slightly, glancing away as the blade came close and he felt his stomach twist up into itself. “Ah, nothing yet. My only guess is that, something… _malfunctioned_ when the twin’s parents died. And since I laid down the spell before the twins were born, it leaked through that way.”

“That seems pretty far out there, but not impossible.” Another swipe, another breath before Ford could speak again.

“Not far out there. We didn’t know about them after they were born; all our relatives had forgotten us. But we might want to make sure this doesn’t spread. If anyone out there hears about where we are–”

“Nobody’s gonna hear about where we are–” Ford shot him a dangerous look, but he could only clench his jaw from his vulnerable position. Stan started and lowered the razor he was working back up to Ford’s jawline. His mouth formed a hard line, but he let Ford speak.

“People already have. And that’s going to be an issue. For example; that queen was in my head. She’s dead, but there was no way all her little bugs died too. One of them may know where we are, our dimension. Or worse; there could be a sleeper in this dimension, looking for us, just in case. Some of the Queen’s memories weren’t pleasant, Stan, we don’t need a horde of those things looking for us–”

“Okay let me just cut you off there, if I may,” he said, motioning to the blade in his hand. Ford frowned, the pun not escaping him. He would have retaliated but his brother had a lethal weapon pressed lightly to his throat.

_Damn him._

“First off, let your paranoid brain be rational for a moment. There’s no way a bunch of _Kleptorpians_ are gonna get the technology to move between dimensions. Even if they know that we can hop them, they don’t, and neither does anyone in _their_ dimension.” Stan took a swipe and cleaned off the blade but didn’t give Ford a chance to speak. As he came back, Ford opened his mouth, just to have Stan grin and shake his head.

“Ah-ah Fordsy, purse those lips; you aren’t walking away from this with a fuckin’ mustache.” Ford angrily did as he was told and closed his eyes as the blade swept under his nose.

“Second of all, _sleeper agents in this dimension_? Ford, how can there be sleeper agents here? Nobody, not even Sanchez, knows what our home dimension is. If someone somehow skipped around and _randomly_ landed here, how the hell would they know to stick around? With the family alive and not knowing we existed, we essentially were never born to anyone from the outside looking in. And it hasn’t been long enough for anyone to even know and get over here to try and find us.”

Another few delicate swipes later, and Ford was _dying_ to refute everything his brother was saying. But again, Stan came in, blade taunting him in the light, and instead he just submissively turned his head and tilted it back so Stan could shave under his chin. Under Stan’s touch, Ford thrummed with annoyance. Stan merely chuckled.

“Third of all - and this is the most important, so listen up, smartass; we are not doing to those kids what we did to the rest of the family, and I will fight you to the floor if you think otherwise.”

Ford twitched and immediately regretted it as Stan nicked him right under the chin.

“Aw _goddamnit_ Ford, I almost had a perfect run there,” Stan complained as Ford jerked back, away from the shaving utensil. Stan brought it safely away from his brother and held Ford steady by the shoulder, making sure no more damage was done. Stan checked the blade before turning back to Ford. His twin’s gaze was so angered that Stan visibly shrunk under it.

“Stan, how could even think I would want to do that?” Stan’s lip curled defensively before closing back up into a pout.

“Oh I don’t know, you’re the paranoid one who thought to have the whole family forget us in the first place. You’re the one who tends to go to any length to stop our information from getting out and that’s the easiest way to close it back up, we both know that but–”

“We’ll find a different way,” Ford stopped him, swallowing. “Yes, it’s the most logical solution but, they are…” he sighed. What _were_ the twins to them, anyway? He barely knew them yet, but he knew that the sort of drastic action Stan was talking about was too much for those kids. Besides, they had already decided to take care of these children in front of the social workers. The social workers also had knowledge of their existence that would leave with them when they left Gravity Falls, and so did the agency they worked for. “The problem is bigger than them and we agreed to take care of them. We’ll have to find another way.”

Stan met his eye and he nodded in return. Ford took another breath and settled back down on top of the toilet seat, realizing that, despite his nick, the shave was yet to be completed. Might as well finish what was started. Silently he offered his throat back up to Stan, closing his eyes and waiting on the last few strokes. Instead of a blade, however, he inhaled as a soft pair of warm lips met the shaven half of his neck, lingering over the fresh skin.

“Hmmmm hey, if you do that, I’ll get irritation,” Ford shot at him, bemused. Stan just kissed him again and grinned against his skin before pulling away to finish the shave job.

“Sorry, you just said what I never thought you would. You put someone before yourself or myself for once in your life.” he grinned devilishly before gently pulling Ford’s head into a more acceptable angle. “I knew there was a reason I loved you.”

Ford huffed out a laugh and let his eyes slide closed again as the blade slid effortlessly over his chin. Instead of fear settling in his stomach, another feeling was growing and was definitely pushing away any lingering phobias he might harbor.

“Yes, of course, the _only_ reason you love me: my charming and selfless demeanor,” to which Stan laughed and Ford grinned, reveling in the sound.

The last few strokes were fairly quick, finally finishing up the shave job. Stan tossed Ford a towel as he cleaned his shaving gear and let the sink drain out its water. Ford patted his cheeks experimentally and ran a 6-fingered hand over his jaw, reveling in this smoothness. It was by far the closest shave he had ever received, and started immediately wondering if there was a way he could implement straight razor technology into a form that was more compatible with his… _attitude_ towards sharp blades near his face. Before he could think too much on it though, Stan was throwing a small bottle at him. Ford caught it, raising an eyebrow.

“Put that on your face. It’ll sting, but it’ll lessen your irritation to zero.” Ford did as he was told and put the moisturizer in his hands, rubbing them together and then over his face. Stan was right; it did sting, but Ford was more lost in the scent of it – the scent he had gotten lost in countless times when he nestled into Stan’s throat at night or in the morning, breathing in the familiar calming scent that reminded him of warm sheets, aged wood and well… _Stan_. It was really the only way to describe it, outside of it being wonderful and causing a huge bubble of affection to grow in his stomach. He hummed in approval and placed the bottle back on the sink counter.

“Gonna have to get me my own scent if you keep shaving me like that, or I’m just gonna get turned on every time,” he said languidly, a tired smile pulling at his cheeks. Stan just shot him a wicked grin back, busy rinsing out the bowl he had worked the lather up in. Ford was once again painfully aware of the fact that Stan was still wearing clothes while he had nothing but a towel around his waist.

“Well, if you enjoyed it _that_ much despite your phobia, I might just have to make this a weekly routine,” he rumbled out, and Ford laughed, finally getting up from his confinement on the toilet.

“I wouldn’t press your luck too much on that front, but –” and now it was Ford’s turn to grab Stan by the shoulder, pulling him into a deep, refreshing kiss. The small growth of Stan’s stubble slanted over his newly shaven skin as he felt Stan rumble underneath his touch. The contact freshly reminded him how the two of them had barely touched in the last 4 or 5 days, and he was fast to deepen the kiss, the warmth spreading in his chest as he did so. Stan, always a willing recipient, pushed himself closer to Ford, which made Ford even _more_ aware of the fact that he was wearing way too little, and getting frustrated that Stan was wearing way too much by comparison. He pulled his lips away, causing Stan to groan out a complaint.

“– _But_ thank you for the shave,” Ford finished, his voice taking on a deeper, huskier tone. He could see the hunger in his brother’s eyes and his grin grew smug. All this time and it still took so little to get Stan worked up and ready to go. And Hell, if Ford didn’t love to toy with that. He pushed himself away from Stan, patting his brother’s shoulder before he backed away.

“You did, however, break your promise. You nicked me when you said you wouldn’t,” Ford said, the laughter trickling into his voice. He shrugged his way into the bedroom while Stan watched him go, mouth agape.

“You _moved,_ you asshole!”

“Yeah, well, guess I can’t _properly_ thank you then, seeing as I can’t even trust you to not hurt me shaving,” Ford teased, throwing himself onto the bed with a laugh. “Guess I’ll just go to sleep and dream of a dimension where you don’t make such an erroneous mistake.” With that, he threw his arms behind his head and closed his eyes, feigning sleep. In his head, he started counting down from ten, betting on at least reaching four before –

But Stan didn’t even give him that before his arms were around Ford, body pinning him to the bed as their lips met in a deep kiss. Ford laughed into the contact, the sound muffled against his twin’s urgency. His hands gripped at Stan’s shoulders and he hummed, happy to know he had at least lost the shirt before joining him on their mattress. As if in response, Stan held him tighter, body rolling into his. Ford groaned out, the heat causing his mind to stall and turn to static.

All this time and it still took so little for Stan to get _him_ worked up and ready to go.

He laughed against the kisses, pulling away just enough to have his grin spread even further against his flushed skin.

“Oh, would you look at that,” Ford said, trying not to laugh between breaths. “Looks like my dream came true; you’re much better than the last Stan.” Stan’s groan was legendary as he rested his head on Ford’s chest, which heaved with wicked cackles.

“Get out. Get out of this bed. There’s no way I’m fucking you now,” he moaned out as he rolled over off of Ford, but Ford wouldn’t have it, not now. He grabbed Stan and pushed him over, slanting their mouths together, the laughter cut off as they lost themselves in each other. When he next pulled away, Stan’s groan had taken on quite a different edge. Ford grinned at that, eyes smokey.

“Change your mind yet?” Ford’s voice was a low rumble, deep and husky and he couldn’t help but love the way Stan squirmed to the sound of it. He composed himself enough to shrug, throwing his own crooked grin right back.

“Well, I suppose I could make an exception for today,” Stan mumbled out, eyes dark. “but I make no promises for tomorrow.”

Ford rolled his eyes and this time it was Stan’s turned to laugh, deep and throaty. And it was moments like this when Ford wondered how he had fallen so in love with his own brother, hell his _twin_ , the man who had shared even the womb with him. It was also in moments like this when he couldn’t care less, when his chest swelled with such affection, where all he could think was how perfect their bodies fit together, how his six fingers slid easily among his five, how everything fell into place in moments like this, in the moments that he lived for, every day.

His equations could wait for one more day because, for 30 years and counting, he knew the man under him was the solution to his every single problem. 


	7. Chapter 7

 

> _Dear Mom and Dad,_
> 
> _It’s been some time since I wrote last! Sorry!! Things have just been soooo HECTIC these last few weeks! Well, mostly because everything is finally okay for the first time in forever. Better than okay even; PERFECT! Not like Christmas-present-I-always-wanted perfect, but unbelieveable-exploding-glitter-kittens perfect! It’s what you always wanted; for us to be with family! They actually found our FAMILY! Even better; they are the BEST GRUNKLES (great-uncles, of course!) EVER! I wish you could meet them - they are REAL LIFE PIRATES! Grunkle Stan even has an eyepatch and everything! And Grunkle Ford is just the COOLEST. He’s like a cool, awesome, super-computer version of you, Dad. Dipper loves him a lot, hangs with him a lot, and while sometimes I miss him, I’m super glad he’s so happy! And oh yeah -- the BEST PART is that they are twins! Like Me and Dipper! PINES TWINS FTW!_
> 
> _I know you guys know how scared I was that we were gonna end up like Princerella or something, stuck in some step-parent’s mansion and having to do all the chores, all the work, getting whipped into running a giant hamster wheel to power their huge billion-inch-screen TV but never allowed to watch… okay so that’s pah-retty far out there I know. But worst-case scenarios are ALWAYS the worst, and with how everything was going, well… I figured that was what was waiting for us. So frustrating but…_
> 
> _You guys don’t need to worry about us, anymore! The grunks are the greatest, Mom. THE GREATEST! Not as great as you guys, of course, so don’t get jealous or anything; you’re our parents and we love you and miss you! But… it’s definitely the place we belong, I can tell. We belong with family. It’s a little bit weird and a little  bit silly and a little bit crazy, but I love them already. I wish you could see them, go out with us, everyone, altogether! They are really the best grunkles a bunch of kids like us could ask to end up with. And they are gonna ADOPT us! We’ll stay PINES FOREVER!_
> 
> _Oops, I would write more, but I gotta go! I hear Dipper coming upstairs and it’s time for dinner -- Grunkle Stan promised Greasy Diner tonight! Will write again soon and tell you all about my crazy adventures!!_  
> 
> 
> _Hugs, Kisses, and KITTENS!_
> 
> _MABEL  
>    
>  PS: There’s a GOAT, here. Be better if it was a pig, but GOAT! OkayIloveyouguysBYEEE!!!_

Mabel was finishing up the last touches of crayon and glitter on her letter as Dipper ran into their shared attic space, pine needles in his hair and face flush with success. His arms were full of what looked like a smouldering heap of tentacles and squishy jello, smelling all the world like a burning rubber raccoon. And by rubber raccoon, it was more of a mixture of something dead and dying, plus burning hair, PLUS the smell of some rubber too. Mabel scrunched her face up as she shoved the finished note into a box and put it on the desk next to her bed. Dipper hastily spat out a greeting while running straight for his messy dresser. He haphazardly threw the burnt, crispy, fleshy body into his other arm and started opening drawers, tossing crumpled clothing everywhere. Mabel held her nose reflexively, waving the air as she jumped off her mattress and opened the window, Dipper too busy with his armful of suckers to notice.

“ _Yeesh_ , bro-bro, what did you do, encounter Cthulu’s love child and decide to kill it?” Dipper, hearing her voice, flashed a grin over his shoulder before going back to his task at hand. He closed one drawer and then opened another, now throwing unpaired socks across their shared room. When he spoke next, it was between rushes of air working to find their way back into his excited lungs.

“Yeah, kind of! But not really- it's called a cycloptopus and they have one eye which also functions as a mouth! Ford says they leaked into our dimension once after a raid in 13-F and have been breeding like crazy in the lake ever since so he’s been trying to study them and quell their numbers and he thinks a good way to do that is to sell the tentacles as sushi but he hasn’t figured out the recipe yet so we’re gonna dissect a few and -- gosh darnit I knew I had a -- _aha_!” Finally, the boy found what he was looking for; a large glass jar stuffed securely amongst his sock drawer. Why Dipper had put a jar in his _drawer_ for safe-keeping, Mabel could only guess. She rolled her eyes as he panted and chattered excitedly while stuffing the smoking alien cephalopod into the container and twisting the lid on securely. Mabel only moved to stop him when his face was gaining too much blue for her to feel okay, and she jumped down, putting a steadying arm on his shoulder while he babbled on about alien classification systems.

“Dipper, as _fascinating_ as that sounds, I think I’d have more fun seeing one in person than having you bring them back as a charred chunk stinking up the joint like your dirty laundry.”

“I can talk to Ford about it! I bet he has some live specimens somewhere in his lab, he likes to keep them for study before releasing them. The next time we go out into the woods together, I’ll ask him!” He said cheerily. Now that he had some time to get some air back into his lungs, the color started to return as big red splotches all over his cheeks. Mabel looked him overly wearily, making sure everything was okay. He seemed alright, but something nagged at her as he walked away, searching through his clothes. “We have to go out and at least collect some eyebats. Ford said their numbers have exploded recently and Stan needs to replace his old taxidermy one in the Shack, said it’s going to ‘hit the laser’ soon, so to speak. It means -”

“-yeah, it means it’s about to crumble into a million zillion pieces, I got it.” Mabel interjected. Dipper didn’t seem to notice as he picked a shirt up, sniffing it experimentally. It seemed to suit his needs and he tossed it over his shoulder, looking for more clean garments. Or, at least, garments passing for clean.

“Definitely, definitely. Hey! Did I tell you I befriended a multi-bear? It’s a bear, but multi! So many heads! I can’t wait to show you a picture, I’m gonna take my phone the next time I go, gonna get a selfie-- or at least try to.” He stopped, pondering to himself, his voice still going a mile a minute. “I wonder if I can fit all ten heads into the frame, though…”

At that, Mabel had decided she had enough of all his adventurous, scientific, mumbo jumbo. She rolled her eyes so dramatically towards the ceiling she caught sight of Harold, the slime ball hanging high in the rafters.

“Ugh, go be macho science-man somewhere else -- like, in the _shower_. You reek of yesterday’s news marinated in skunk.” she put her hands on her hips, an arched eyebrow reaching up towards her hairline. “Speaking of macho, how are you doing with -” she gestured vaguely towards his ribcage. He waved a hand in her direction, pulling out some clean, mismatched socks from the pile he had disgorged from his drawer not moments ago.

“Fine, fine, everything’s fine!” he said, more dismissively than he probably should have, and she cocked a head at him. Her brow furrowed and she pouted out her bottom lip in annoyance.

“Okay, ‘cause you seem pretty outta breath today, so -”

“It’s fine! I promise!” he said, cutting her off. Seeing the look on her face, he softened marginally. “I’d let you know if something wasn’t fine, okay?” She looked down and away at this, but nodded at his words. That seemed to be all he needed and he grinned back, gathering his clothes up in his arms. “Great! Okay, I gotta get a shower, I’ll see you downstairs Mabel!”

“Yeah, good-good talk. See you--” the door clicked shut behind him.

“--downstairs.” she meekly finished, letting out a heavy sigh. He was already gone though, leaving her to stand in the silence his departure left. The room feeling suddenly stifling, and she tugged at the hem of her newly knitted sweater. _Just the summer heat_ , she told herself, but she knew that was a weak excuse, even for her. She glanced wearily at the cycloptopus, a knotted feeling settling deep in her stomach.

It was a feeling she couldn’t place her finger on, and she didn’t like that, not one bit.  


 

* * *

 

 

“Yo, Mabel girl, why the long face? You almost look as excited as my friend Robbie, and he’s _never_ excited.” Wendy quipped, raising a steady eyebrow over her teen magazine. Mabel had draped herself over the globe in the gift shop, cheeks puffed and brow furrowed. She gave Wendy a sad look, huffing out a breath like she was Atlas herself and she was just so done with holding up the world spinning under her. Wendy just looked at her steadily, cocking her head to the side. “Even your hair band looks less...glittery than usual.”

Mabel cried out in dismay at the words and Wendy leaned back a little, surprised by the emotional outburst. “Oh Wendy, it’s true, isn’t it? This is my least sparkly headband!” She brought her hands up dramatically as she spun around, head falling back down to rest on central Asia. “It’s nothing though, I mean. I guess I’m just not feeling it today.”

“It definitely can be draining to be sunshine and rainbows all the time,” Wendy said thoughtfully, returning to her magazine, thinking the conversation done at that. However, Mabel just continued on dramatically, causing Wendy to huff out a breath and lower her magazine slowly. The girl was always loud, so getting out of a conversation was next to impossible once she got going.

“I guess it’s just that I haven’t gotten to do anything fun lately! Especially not with my Grunkle Ford and _especially_ not with Dipper! He comes in every day talking about some new, exciting nerd-thing, and I haven’t gotten to do anything fun since- _aah…_ ”  


Mabel trailed off and Wendy frowned at her, cocking her head. It was only in that moment that Mabel realized she had no idea how much Wendy knew about her grunkles and what they were actually up to in their downtime. They had a pretty good facade going on upstairs and in-town, she had to admit, but how much could she say in front of this red-headed girl? Certainly she couldn’t finish her sentence with ‘ _since I fought giant killer bees last week_ ’ but her brain was grinding to a halt trying to think up a cover. She wasn’t good at lying, not like Grunkle Stan was. Wendy cocked her head further, eyes shifting around the room, and Mabel realized belatedly she was making the same noncommittal noise with her mouth for the last 15 seconds.

“... _Aaah_ We got here! Since we got here.” Wendy’s eyebrows shot up, and Mabel felt her face flush.  “Nothing exciting has happened for me really, not like the science stuff Dipper goes on about. I mean, I’ve done some fun _girly_ things with you and I gave Grunkle Stan a makeover to look like a tiger, and Soos is the greatest interior designer this town has to offer but Dipper gets all the explosions and Grunk time! Where’s some grunk time for Mabel, huh?”

“Hmmm, well, why don’t you let ol’ Fordsy know how you’re feeling? He’s kind of an oddball but still an understanding guy. I’m sure you could go on a trip with him if you asked.”

Mabel looked down on Mongolia, the feeling from earlier giving another twist in her stomach. Asking would be her usual go-to; she was the more up-front twin of the two of them. But the problem went deeper than that, and she couldn’t place her finger on it. Because she couldn’t place her finger on it she couldn’t identify it and since she couldn’t identify it, she couldn’t do anything about it yet. Besides, did she really wanna do boring science things with her grunkle? Was the problem really that she was simply bored and feeling left out? Or was it something else entirely?

Before she could take her train of thought any further, the loud voices of the boys finally floated towards them, gaining in volume as both Dipper and Ford came in, trailed by a bored-looking Stan. They were enthusiastically chatting about something, but it was so fast and loud, Mabel couldn’t even make it out. That feeling twisted even deeper in her gut, making her squirm. They were all looking ready to go out; Dipper looking clean, Ford wearing his large coat over a blue sweater Mabel knitted for him, and Stan still wearing his white dress shirt and black pants from his earlier tours. As Dipper and Ford’s conversation hit a new crescendo, Stan rolled his eyes so hard it could be heard.

“Yeesh, if you two yahoos have any more nerd moments this week, I’ll have enough to start boxing it and selling as overpriced candy. Stomach ache guaranteed!” Mabel grinned and laughed at her uncle’s joke, jumping down from her spot over Great Britain to land back in Gravity Falls. She then ran over and shouted “ _haha, ZING!_ ” while giving Stan a high-five, much to the chagrin of their brothers. At the disappointed look on Dipper’s face, Mabel pulled out a sheepish grin.

“Aww, come on Dipper, it’s just a joke. Besides, it’s kinda cute, isn’t it Grunkle Stan?” She elbowed his stomach playfully, winking out a grin, inclining her head to get a peek at her grunkle’s faces. She had noticed that if she complimented them, one or both would get _adorably_ flustered. Clearly they both just weren’t used to getting compliments all the time; with just the two of them here, it probably didn’t happen near often enough. Which was sad, because they clearly deserved it! Compliments were like hugs in a phrase, and if they made her great uncles get flustered and awkward, even better.

Oh, those poor boys, not used to a woman being around.

Unlike his grunkles, Dipper just simply crossed his arms and scowled at Mabel, causing her to flash an even wider grin right back. “Mabel! It isn’t _cute_ , it’s important scientific discoveries! If anything it’s… it’s…” he trailed off, wracking his brain for the best word.

“Super nerdy?”  
  
“Dorkish?”  
  
Both Mabel and Stan responded, managing to keep a straight face the whole time. Dipper’s face heated. “No! Dignified!” He straightened, taking a deep breath in through his nose. Only to sneeze on the way out. The sound was tiny and pathetic, and Mabel couldn’t handle it.

“Aww, you sneeze like a kitten!” Dipper just glared death back at her gleaming face(that literally gleamed, thanks to her braces). Just to make him feel that much more humiliated, Mabel took this chance to turn and wave to Wendy.

“Hey Wendy! Wanna come to dinner with us? Greasy Diiiners~!” Mabel shouted to her, seeing her brother turn the shade of a beet out of the corner of her eye. Wendy looked up at the little family thing going on in front of her over the magazine before checking her watch.

“Ooooh, would love to, Glitter Queen, but I told Thompson and the gang I’d hang with them later. Plus, according to my watch, I still have a half an hour for my shift and it would be a _shame_ to leave so early…” Her voice trailed off as she raised her two eyes to meet Stan’s one. He huffed out a groan and waved at her dismissively.  
  
“Eh. I’ll be out, and the shop’s dead for the night. Go home early, if ya-” but Wendy was already grabbing her coat,bag, and bottle of Pitt Cola.

“Thanks Mr. Pines see you tomorrow!” was all they heard as she flew out the door in a flurry of flannel. Dipper tried to call after her, succeeding only in gasping like a fish before finally blabbered “Yeah, see ya later Wendy! Maybe next time!” Mabel punched his arm playfully, and he managed his own small punch back. Behind them, Stan wiped his hands together.

“Welp, that takes care of that. Which one of you brats is hungry?”

The twins both yelled their separate opinions and ran for the car, their two great uncles trailing behind them.  


 

* * *

 

 

“Alright, so run by the logistics of this one more time for me.”

Ford sat his his fingers steepled in front of his face, a slight frown pulling at his features. He met Mabel’s gaze look-for-look, as she puffed out her cheeks. Her own hands were held open in front of her, all ten fingers splayed out for everyone to see. Next to her, Dipper hid his face in his hands, and Stan watched with rapt attention.

“Hoh-kay, it’s SUPER simple,” Mabel said, raising her voice over the din of the dinner rush at Greasy Diner. They were still waiting for their orders to come in, with Mabel distracting them all from hunger with a little game. Just a little, harmless, fun game.

“It’s called ‘ _Never have I Eve_ r’ and it’s a game where we go around stating ‘Never have I ever…. BLANK. If someone has done that thing stated, they lower a finger. The person with the most fingers up at the end wins!”

“This isn’t one of those ploys for ‘family bonding’ is it?” Stan’s off-hand remark caused Mabel to respond with a farting noise.

“This is much better than trying to have you guys forcibly tell us whenever you’re running off to next!” She said with grin, while both of the elder twins scowled at her This was indeed true; after their little stunt of trying to run off without her _express permission_ (while also lying about it and not inviting her and Dipper along in the first place), she decided the best way to make sure they would never pull such a foolhardy move again was to keep them under lock and key. They had both laughed at the idea...clearly underestimating their grand-niece’s powers of persuasion and super glue. Being stuck to a couch for 3 hours was not something either of them was willing to repeat.

“This is just a harmless, fun game that will help us learn more about each other in severely embarrassing and/or humiliating ways!” she said cheerily, her grin wide. Next to her, Dipper let out a small noise and what sounded like ‘oh man’. This only made her more excited as she wiggled in her seat, ready to get started. Ford, however, kept rubbing his chin.

“Ten fingers huh...Well I guess I’m disqualified then, you guys have fun.” He leaned back against the booth, nonchalantly keeping his eyes averted from Mabel’s gaze. Sensing him trying to back out, she snapped him back into the conversation.

“No way, don’t think so, Mister I-have-12-fingers! You are still playing, but you lose your thumbs. There; then everyone’s even.” Stan laughed and Ford pouted, returning to the conversation. Mabel grinned and wiggled her fingers for emphasis.

“Alright everyone, fingers up!” Slowly, the boys groaned in their own way and put up ten fingers, Ford politely folding his thumbs in to keep it fair. “Okay, I’ll start us off with something easy. Hmmm… Never have I ever… EATEN A SNAKE!”

Unsurprisingly, nobody’s finger’s moved… except for Stan, who pulled down an index finger. Mabel gasped, and they all turned to him, shocked. Stan looked at each of them in turn, his head turning so his eye could catch all of their gaping faces. He simply shrugged and said “What? It was a dare. Not bad, either. If you’re ever on the road and starving, a barbequed, flayed snake isn’t half bad!” Mabel’s eyes widened in wonderment.

“Grunkle Stan, that’s the most amazing piece of advice I have ever heard and I will take it to my grave.” The sincerity of her comment made her great uncle stall for a moment, but he quickly recovered.

“Little lady, if you think that’s impressive, just wait until I teach you about cheating at poker.” Her eyes widened even further, prompting a cleared throat and fixed glare from Ford.

“That’s enough of that, she’s _12,_ Stanley. I’ll go next. Hmmm, never have I ever…”

And so they went around the table, laughing and gasping at each finger dropped - or not. They paused only for food when it was brought out to them, but the game continued between bites. Despite the boys having their earlier trepidations, they were all enjoying themselves and Mabel beamed at the success her little game was bringing. Ever since finding out her grunks could actually travel between dimensions and made money doing it, they both had been much more forthcoming, for which Mabel was eternally grateful. She suspected though that some things were still unsaid, but at the end of the day, she still trusted her great uncle’s judgement. That tends to happen when your family saves you from gigantic alien wasps and then teaches you how to bite back.

She took a final chomp of her burger with one hand, the other steadfastly holding up her four remaining fingers. It was Dipper’s turn to ask a question, and his brow was furrowed in concentration, searching for something good to ask. As the game had progressed, the questions got riskier and riskier, which was half of the fun -- what to ask that won’t be overly incriminating for oneself, but _definitely_ incriminating for everyone else?

“Alright alright, let’s see.. Never have I ever… grown a chest hair!” Next to him, Mabel burst out laughing, and both Stans groaned appreciatively, throwing a finger down between them. A strategic move, as Stan only had two fingers left, complaining as that number dropped to one. Ford still had quite a few fingers left and was in second place, even with his two-finger handicap.

“Good one Dipper, only one left and Grunkle Stan will be knocked out!”

“Hey, it just means I’ve led all the more an exciting life than the rest of you knuckleheads. At least one of us had to know how to let loose every once in awhile,” he quipped, throwing a thumb at Ford. “Or my life would have been just as boring as this book nerd over here.” Ford scowled at his twin.

“Are you accusing me of being a stick in the mud?”

“Nah, just a stick in the mud when it comes to anything not-nerdy.”

“Well, just for that, Stan; Never have I ever been married for only 6 hours.”

Stan choked on his drink, Mabel squealed, and Dipper let out a very loud exclamation. Ford looked on, smug and triumphant as Stan’s last finger fell, dropping him out of the game. Mabel however, had completely forgotten about all that. She stood up, screaming at the top of her lungs

“GRUNKLE STAN! You were MARRIED once?!”

Nearby tables looked over to theirs as Mabel caused a scene, looking around the bar. “Oh my gosh; was it Susan? Was is Lazy Susan? Was it some high school crush? Only six hours -- my gosh you are even more _hopeless_ than I thought!” Mabel kept going a mile a minute, with Stan frantically trying to calm her down, his face heating as Ford laughed next to him and Dipper just stared, bug-eyed. Their Grunkle Stan; a married man for _6 hours_!

“Is that even legal? Can someone actually only get married for 6 hours?” Dipper quipped, legitimately concerned by the process of all this. As people started to look the other way again, Stan simply rolled his eye.

“Ever heard of running off to Vegas? Yeah well, I met a chick at a bar, I did some illegal gambling -- like you do! It was Vegas! -- she thought it was uh, _cute_ , and we got married that night.” Stan tugged at his collar while Ford looked positively on the verge of the giggles next to him. Mabel leaned forward towards Stan, wanting to know more.

“And then? And then and then _and then_?!”

“And then she found out that I was going under a fake name, and she was so mad she burned the papers and then, uh, the whole hotel room. It wasn’t my best break up.” Ford was almost on the floor laughing from this, prompting a loud growl from Stan. “What are you laughing at Poindexter, at least I’ve had a girlfriend or two!” He came back up, wiping the moisture from behind his glasses.

“Sure if you wanna call those girlfri-”

“WHAT!”

All three of the boys jumped in their seats, and the diner went deathly silent as most customers turned toward Mabel. Her eyes bored into Ford’s and his face reddened, realizing he was the cause of the outburst.

“Grunkle Ford… you-you’ve _never_ had a girlfriend?!” He leaned back a bit, the color rising even more. Stan looked like he had just won the Oregon lottery.

“Oh-I-Well, you see Mabel it’s just --” he weakly responded, but Mabel was having none of it.

“Just _nothing!_ ” she said, her voice holding a surprising amount of emotion. All of them turned to look at her, concerned. “This is even worse than I thought! I figured you were bad at taking compliments because you didn’t have a woman living with you, but never? _Once_? Why? Nobody is _that_ hopeless in love!”

It was only at this point that the boys realized just how deadly serious this was to Mabel. Both of her Grunkles were rendered speechless and unable to respond. They both exchanged glances and Ford rubbed at the back of his head awkwardly. He looked like he was about to say something, but Mabel’s brain wasn’t listening. It had made a split decision right then and there and wouldn’t be swayed by anything else.

As Ford tried his best to gasp out a response, Mabel raised a hand and raised her voice.

“HEY! LAZY SUSAN!”

The waitress came over, smiling, straight to their booth. In the corner, Ford shrank down and away, throwing his hands up over his head and saying something indescribable under his breath. As Lazy Susan greeted them, Mabel took her hand in hers, giving her a beaming smile.

“Lazy Susan, have I ever told you how radiant you look?” Mabel did her best to ignore the tiny noises of protest from the corner. Susan, not realizing how awkward the scene before her was, just responded with a laugh and a blush.

“Oh sweetie, you’re too much! Would you guys like your bill, then?”

“That would be great Susan, thanks,” Stan quipped, while Ford hid himself even farther from view. However, it was his apparent absence that got Susan’s attention.

“Oh, where’d old Fordsy run off to?” she said sweetly, and at the mention of name, Ford shot up on his seat, his face now the shade of a strawberry.

“Here! - I um -” he cleared his throat to prevent his voice from spectacularly cracking again. Lazy Susan just eyed him oddly, looking to Stan for an explanation. He just shrugged and pointed towards Mabel, who was still beaming up at her.

“So Susan, what if I told you that one of my great uncles wanted to take you out on the town for a night? Emphasis on great, if you know what I mean.”

Lazy Susan just laughed, her face coloring a little. Ford swallowed loudly in the corner, but Mabel refused to look at him. Dipper was silent behind her, knowing resistance was futile.

“Oh I always thought one of the Pines boys would try and come after me eventually! So which one is it, who’s the lucky bachelor?”

“Why Grunkle FORD, of course!” Ford jumped and turned towards her, taking a deep breath and folding his hands on the table, doing his best to look dignified. Lazy Susan widened both of her eyes at that, genuinely stunned.

“Oh!” she said, turning to face him. And there he sat in the corner, as rigid as stone.

“Oh, indeed,” he responded back.

They both were silent for a time, and Mabel looked between them, waiting for something, _anything_ to happen. Mabel frowned and nudged Lazy Susan, who looked back in her direction. After beckoning her down, she whispered something in her ear. The action caused Ford to fidget even more, his thumbs running over one another. When Susan straightened up again, she looked right over to Ford, a small smile on her face.

“So, er…”

“Yes?”

“Do you like… cats?”

“I am not particularly fond of them over any other creature, no.”

His answer was curt. So was her responding frown and nod.

“Oh. I see. Well, here’s the bill, boys.”

She put the bill down on the table and walked off. Mabel watched her go, mouth open, before rounding on Ford.

“ _What was that_?!” Mabel hissed through her teeth. Ford, finally relaxing now that he was no longer under scrutiny, had the color recede from his cheeks.

“What was _what_?” he cracked out. “You can’t just ask people if they wanna go on dates, Mabel!”

“Besides, you need to pay more attention,” Stan said nonchalantly, pulling out some cash and paying for dinner. “Susan has a thing for me, not Poindexter over there.”

Mabel stuttered, deflating. “Wha- _really_?”

“Sure thing, kiddo. She told me years ago. I told her I wasn’t interested.”

“But you flirt with her all the time!” Mabel said incredulously.

“That’s because Stan’s an insufferable flirt with pretty much anything that moves,” Ford retorted, adjusting his glasses. “Luckily, Lazy Susan knows it. Pulling a move like that, however, just gets her hopes up.”

Mabel looked between them, and then looked at Dipper, who just shrugged. Her face then fell to her hands in her lap where it stayed. She felt ashamed and embarrassed, as if she was sworn she had cracked a code but instead gotten it all wrong.

“Look, Mabel,” Stan said, prompting her to look up and meet his face. His one eye was fixed on her and she found it hard to look away. “I’ve lived in this down for the better part of 15 years. Ol’ Sixer here, even longer than that. And not a lot of people come drifting in. If there was someone special here in this sleepy town for us, we would have known by now.”

Mabel just bit her lip, and nodded, her eyes returning to her lap. The booth was oddly silent after that, with everyone finishing up their food, politely declining dessert, and getting ready to leave. Mabel tried not to say anything, tried not to cause another significant outburst or scene like she had earlier. She said a few concommital words to Dipper as they got ready to leave and on the way back home in the car, but couldn’t think of anything else to say. She was too ashamed of herself to even speak to her twin brother, and she was certainly too ashamed to speak to her Grunkle Ford.

She had messed up. She had gotten carried away in her wish to hang out with her grunkles, to make them feel like a family, that she went too far. She could tell she clearly crossed a line and wasn’t thinking clearly. What a big mistake. And now, she had caused everyone to feel embarrassed. So much for showing Grunkle Ford they could have anything in common. Maybe it was best that Dipper got to spend more time with him. At least they would have something to talk about then. There was no way she could spend time with Ford if that was the way their interactions were always going to go.

And there it was again, that nagging, deep-rooted feeling. She usually tried to push it away, but in the quiet car, on the way home, she let it nag and eat at her, spurred on by her earlier mishap. She worried on her lip, trying not to cry on the tears that stung her eyes. Earlier she had wondered if the feeling was jealousy; a little green monster growing inside of her. Now though, she thinks it might be something completely different -something a lot darker and bigger than something like that. As they pulled up to the Shack and she looked up at the building, that feeling in her gut only grew.

As everyone got out of the car and went inside, she hung back a little bit, let everyone get a head start. When Dipper voiced his protest, worry clear on his face, she just waved him off, shaking her head at him. he had given her an unreadable stare before hopping out of the car and running off, leaving her alone in the old El Diablo. She unbuckled her seatbelt but made no motion to get out of the car, instead laying down on the seat and staring up at the ceiling. The old leather stuck to her skin in the heat and the sweat beaded on her forehead almost immediately, but still, she didn’t move. She couldn’t, not with her emotions battling away inside of her.

Maybe she would write to her parents again, that seemed like a good idea. Maybe she could amend the section about Ford, telling them that she was scared. Not of him -- never that. Scared that, even though they were family, Ford would never feel _that_ way about her; never see her in the same light. She wasn’t smart enough, they were too different, too dissimilar. Stan was fine but -- and there was always a but. The tears pricked at the edges of her eyes and this time, she didn’t stop them from rolling down her cheeks. She sniffed, the air heavy against her sinuses. Still she didn’t move. The impact of her thoughts was too much for her to bear so she simply chose to not deal with it, and instead cry a little bit in the car, where nobody could see her sadness.

She didn’t know how long she was there for -- it felt like hours, but it may have only been a few minutes when she suddenly heard a tap on the window above her. The noise brought her out of her own head and back into the present, and she quickly wiped her eyes clear before sitting up, thinking she’d see Dipper finally come out to collect her.

“Hey, Dipper I-” She stopped, as she turned and saw Ford’s face through the window, waving at her bemusedly. “Oh! Uh, Great Uncle Ford I-”

“Hey, is everything okay?” he asked through the window. His voice was slightly muffled, but she could still hear him. She just averted her eyes from his gaze and nodded.

“You ready to come out now, then?”  
  
She shook her head. A beat passed between them, and nobody spoke. Until, finally:

“Well, is it okay if I come in then?”

She looked back up at him at that, and saw a small smile on his face, looking for the world too genuine to resist. She chewed on her lip a bit before letting out a breath, and opening the door to let him in. Ford crawled into the back seat next to her and she scooted over a bit to give him room, the leather unsticking from her legs uncomfortably as she adjusted for his arrival. After he climbed in, he shut the door and shifted in the seat, folding his hands in his lap. Mabel darted her eyes to him, and then looked away, more preoccupied with playing with her shoes than looking him in the face. Again, a moment or two passed in silence. Ford, for all his air of patience, still let his left leg bounce a little.

“You know, it’s kind of weird, seeing the view from this car from the back seat,” he started, quietly. “I almost always get the view from the passenger seat. Even since we were teens, I’ve always had the passenger seat.”

Mabel’s eyes darted to him, her head moving a fraction of an inch his direction.

“You guys have had this car since you were teens?”

“Mmhmm. It’s practically as old as we are. Sometimes I don’t think there’s anything in the world Stan loves more than this car.”

“Is that why he never got married?” She asked, bemusedly. “He loved his car too much?”

Ford chuckled next to her. It was an easy sound that made her smile.

“Well, he’s had his fair share of girls in the back seat, but that’s probably why he was never able to settle down. Stan’s always been a drifter and a grifter, and that kind of attitude doesn’t really suit domestic life. He always talked about getting chicks when we were kids, but even I don’t think he really meant a word of it.” They were quiet for a moment, before Mabel finally broke it, taking a deep breath.

“Before… before everything with mom, and dad. and the social workers I… I was trying to plan out the summer, you know? Not like Dipper does- with lists and codes and fact sheets and planograms. I just wanted a rough list of what I wanted to accomplish this summer. It was the last summer before we became teens and I wanted to make the most of it. And one of those things was to get my one, amazing summer romance. Like in Grease; fall in love and see stars and get that kiss that lifts the leg, it’s so great.

“But now, I don’t know. I want to still do all the great things summer has to offer, but it’s hard being cheery all the time. It’s hard to be happy, when everyone else is sad. But I gotta be happy. If I’m not happy, how will Dipper be happy? And if I’m not happy, how will I ever find a great boyfriend? If I’m not happy, how will I know if-”

Her words caught painfully in her throat and she swallowed them up, folding her hands tight between her legs. Ford, sensing something was up, quickly wrapped his arms around her, pulling her in tight. His big hands were warm and encompassing and as soon as her face hit the sweater, she could feel the tears, hot and unwanted, on her face. He cooed softly to her, stroking her head, and just such a gesture caused her to almost cry even more. But he just hugged her tight, swaying a little, not stopping her, just comforting her.

“Mabel, nobody expects you to be happy all the time. Nobody expects you to forget that you’re hurting.”

“I know, I know,” she coughed out through her sobs, trying to compose herself. “It’s just, I always told Mom and Dad that I would be happy and strong no matter what happened, no matter where we went, because if I was happy, if I didn’t look sad, maybe they would love me just as much as they did. And...not… not..”

“Hey, woah, hey, you don’t have to be happy and cheery just for me and Stan to love you. We already do; if I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t be so worried about you fighting giant wasps. If Stan didn’t love you, he wouldn’t have blown those wasps up before they could hurt you. You never have to worry about impressing us or acting happy to get us to love you Mabel, we already _do_.”

She let these words sink in, suddenly feeling even more foolish than before, and yet at the same time relieved. “I-I guess I just saw you hanging out with Dipper so much that I thought you liked him more or something. At first I thought I was just jealous but...I realized I just was scared that you wouldn’t love me as much as you loved me. And then I messed everything up at dinner and--” Ford cut her off there, though, taking her arms in both hands and straightening her until he was looking at her face to face. This close up, she couldn’t help but notice how intense his eyes were, but also how sad and weary they were. She swallowed, unable to take her gaze away.

“Mabel Pines, I want you to listen and listen good. Okay?” she nodded. “Okay. I only hang out with Dipper because I see in him a kindred spirit; someone to share my interest in science with. I thought -- perhaps foolishly -- that you would be better off spending some tutelage under Stan. Like you, he’s very fiery and passionate and full of life. He goes into things head first and with his whole heart and he never looks back. I didn’t want to bore you with things that you thought didn’t matter; what a waste of your time and talents. But perhaps… perhaps I misjudged that. Perhaps I didn’t spend enough time with you this past week and.. and I’m sorry.”

Mabel gaped at him, but quickly recovered, her head shaking. “No, no Great uncle Ford, I-I should be sorry, I shouldn’t have tried to make you do something you didn’t want to, or you weren’t comfortable with and-and I’m sorry if I thought you didn’t love me. I mean, you can totally spend nerd time with Dipper, he’s so _happy_ but I just… sometimes I do want to spend time with you, get to know you. I have two cool grunks, not just one.”

At that Ford smiled. “Well, I’m glad you think I’m cool too, on top of being a huge nerd.” She smiled and chuckled under her breath, prompting a twitch of a grin on his own face.

“Yeah, you kind of are the super nerd of the century, Grunkle Ford.”

“Yes, well, you’re also the niece with the most gumption that I’ve ever seen, so you at least have that going for you.”

“I don’t know what that means, Grunkle Ford, but thank you.”

“Well, it actually means --” he stopped himself with the look on her face, before straightening up and coughing. “you’re right. Unimportant. But what is important is us figuring out something to do together, and I think I might just have the trick.”

Mabel’s eyebrow raised in interest, which was met with a wide grin from Ford. It reminded her so much of Stan’s smile that she was instantly intrigued. Only something _really_ fun could get a Pines smile like that.

She watched as out of his pocket he pulled out his communicator and pressed a button; the screen then lit up with a blue light, projecting a small image of a machine and some jars into the gathering gloom of the darkness. Mabel gasped at the imagery, eyes wide.

“We finally got some large buyers for our recently collected stache of Kleptorpian honey -- honey, I might add, that Stan has said you have been helping him clean and prepare for shipping.” She nodded absently, captivated by the small, hologram. It slowly rotated on the spot, showing all angles of the projected images of the jars and different machinery. “Well, the people who bought it would like us to hand deliver it personally to make sure the batch is clean. I wanted to see if… if you wanted to tag along with us.”

Mabel’s eyes went huge as she breathed in, and Ford just smiled back at her.

“Really? You’re-you’re not pulling my leg on this? I can come with you?”

He chuckled and closed up his communicator, storing it away in his pocket. “Of course. You and Stan personally cleaned it, and at least one of you should see how we typically handle business. I would have your brother come along as well, but we need it to look natural, and he can stay and hold the fort while we’re away. We’ll leave in a couple of days and hopefully not be gone long; at least, not long in that dimension’s timeline. I’ve already devised a cover for us, which Dipper will know about and use to disguise our absence.”

“Wow. You really do mean this. I get to come then? I can come too??”

“I’d be delighted if you came. And ah, since all we are doing is dropping off honey, we will have some down time. If you’d like, and if it would really make you feel better…” He trailed off, and his face flushed, a 6-fingered hand going for the back of his neck.

“You can, ah… set Stan and I up with dates.”

Mabel forgot to breathe for a moment.

“You’re not serious.”

“As serious as my old man.”

“You want me--”

“Yes.”

“--to set you up ON ALIEN WOMEN DATES?”

At that, Ford coughed, his face going even redder. In the end though, he just laughed, shaking his head in the process.

“I-I guess that would indeed be correct, Mabel.”

The scream that she created in the car was deafening, and she bounced up and down in her seat, grabbing his hand and shaking it happily as she did so.

“Oh thank you, thank you Grunkle Ford! You literally are the GREATEST uncle!” And at that, she lunged into him, capturing him in a big hug. He was startled out of action at first, but made to wrap his arms around her, returning it in full. When they separated, both look much happier than when Ford first arrived on the scene.

“So, now that that’s settled, you should probably be getting upstairs to your brother, yes? He’s been worried sick about you since we left the diner.” Mabel’s face fell a little, chewing on her lip. She hated making Dipper feel bad, and needed to rectify that as soon as she got upstairs.

“Is he the one who duped you into coming out here and saying something to me?” Ford laughed, opening the door and getting out. He then held out a hand for Mabel, helping her out of the car and to her feet. The night air was still warm, but the breeze was nice after such a long time in the stifling atmosphere of the El Diablo.  They walked back up to the house, still hand in hand.

“He certainly helped, but I thought something was wrong too. It’s very odd when your favorite, most bubbly niece suddenly becomes as quiet as a clam.”

“Pfft, Grunkle Ford, how can I be your favorite, I’m your _only_ niece. Hardly any competition.”

“Hmm, possibly, but I don’t think any other niece would be near as interesting as you, only or otherwise.”

She smiled at that, the color rising to her cheeks. “Thanks for coming out to get me, Grunkle Ford.”

“You’re welcome, Mabel.”

“And by the way?”

“Yes Mabel?”

“I love you too. And don’t you ever forget it.”

His laugh at her words was heartfelt, the smile forming over every word.

“With an attitude like that, I don’t think I will ever be allowed to.”


	8. Chapter 8

“You sure you aren’t regretting this?”

“Of course not Stan, why would I possibly regret this?”

“Oh, I don’ know, because you _haven’t_ been restless for the past 24 hours, and you _haven't_ been whispering backup plans under your breath, and you _didn’t_ desperately bone me into the mattress last ni- ”

Ford shot Stan a glare from his position in front of the mirror in their room, prompting Stan to raise his shoulders incredulously. “Look, between the two of us? I know who would be more likely to regret somethin’ like this.”

“I’m _fine_ , Stanley, and I’m not regretting my decision.” He looked back to the mirror on the wall, fiddling with the cuffs to his button-up. The royal purple of the shirt with black tie looked good on him, and the gold crest on the cufflinks complimented it nicely. Stan raised an eyebrow as he looked Ford up and down, from the perfectly pressed collar down to the dark umber of his pants and calf-high boots. It had been a while since his brother had cleaned up so nicely, and Stan knew it was because he was feeling overly self-conscious. He didn’t even work this hard when Stan wanted to take him somewhere nice. Fancy cufflinks finally in place, he checked the placement of his hidden weapons, further visualizing his unease. Stan met his gaze with a raised brow and bemused smirk. Ford just huffed, deflating.

“Look, I _refuse_ to regret this, okay? We’re doing it for Mabel, and I refuse to let her down. I-I _will_ enjoy this visit, and besides, she’s likely to pair us up with individuals who already know us and know about us, and we’ve visited this dimension plenty of times, hell we even _lived there_ for a more than a few years, so I know what to expect, how to behave, and - and…” Ford stuttered, studying Stan’s face, smoothing himself down as he did so. “What? What’s wrong, do I have something I need to fix or-?”

“No. You just look really nice, Poindexter,” Stan said easily, smiling away as Ford flushed at the compliment. His eyes darted around the room as he continued to smooth out any imaginary wrinkles.

“Yes. Well. You look quite clean yourself, Stanley.” The flustered attempt at a compliment just causes a laugh to bubble up, making Ford blush even deeper.

“Amazing. 30 years around each other and you still squirm under a compliment,” Stan said humorously, gently entering Ford’s personal space to check his own reflection in the mirror. Ford wasn’t kidding though, and Stan knew it; he was dressed much more plainly than his brother’s purple, leaning more for a clean, pale yellow dress shirt that complimented his shoulders nicely. Instead, his flair was more in the accessories; a pinky ring on the right hand, a gold earring hanging on the left ear under a black, Ultrasuede eye patch used only for fancy occasions, a few thin, gold bands to accentuate his neck, with one button on the shirt undone to keep them visible and show off his collar bone. Straight black pants with a clean, newly polished shoes to compliment and a white gold-rimmed belt buckle for emphasis. Not that he needed to impress anyone other than the man next to him, but hey, presentation was everything. And Stan Pines was nothing if not a man of _outstanding_ composition.

Ford, however, was clearly occupied with other things that didn’t include the nice visual standing right in front of him. Scoffing, he went over to the closet, rummaging through his coats, still all nerves and frayed edges.

“We both know it’s not your compliments that have me all... _unrefined,_ Stanley. Besides, it’s hard to tell myself that it’s just a simple thing, that it means nothing, that you won’t get upset, that Mabel will get someone we already know, or…”

He pulled out one of his longer jackets, a darker black one instead of his usual tan. Stan rolled up his sleeves coolly while Ford pulled the jacket over his shoulders, his mouth still running. His mouth kept running as Stan strolled calmly up to him, eyes still on his own sleeves, only half-listening to his brother’s list of scenarios as he leaned in easily and captured Ford’s lips in his own. That seemed to do the trick, as Ford abruptly stopped his rapid fire chatter to breathe Stan in and kiss him back. A satisfied sound rumbled out Stan and he pulled away, smiling, a hand on Ford’s shoulder.

“Shaddup, would ya. You think too much. This'll be fun, it will make Mabel happy, and no matter what, we’ll be going back home with a nice bit of credit in the bank and with each other. Just make the most of it and loosen up a bit.” To drive the point home, Stan loosened Ford’s tie before adjusting it it properly. Ford let out a deep breath, smiling into the contact, and Stan knew he had won.

“Fine, alright. You’re right. But just in case I’m still carrying all my usual and I’ll be monitoring everyone just in case something goes down and we need to be there.” Stan chuckled, pulling away from Ford and moving towards the door.

“I can win battles, but not the war,” he said, nonchalantly. Opening the door, he motioned to Ford. “C’mon, we’ve left Mabel waiting long enough.”

The aforementioned great-niece awaited them downstairs in the living room with her twin brother, both rapidly discussing the episode of _Ghost Harrassers_ they had just watched. While Dipper was wearing his usual t-shirt, open vest, and hat, Mabel wore the usual _un_ usual. Her bright pink sweater looked newly knitted and was covered in bees, their yellow flight trails wrapping around her entire outfit. She had decided that her hair deserved a ponytail and a few clips, instead of the usual headband, and her skirt was a nice, deep blue. As the men entered, they both looked their way, Mabel gasping deeply at the sight of her grunkles all done up. Stars in her eyes, she raced over, checking them both out.

“Woooah, look at these handsome bacheloors~!” She jingled out, holding Stan’s hand as she jumped up and down. Dipper got up and followed his sister, looking his Grunkles over skeptically.

“Mabel, are you really sure this is a good idea?”

“Good idea? I think you mean _great_ idea, Dipping Sauce! I think this has been my best idea to date! And that includes shoving gummy worms up my nose.”

“Nobody ever considered that a good idea except _you_ , Mabel,” he said under his breath. She was hardly phased by the comment however, and instead continued to dote on how well her two great uncles cleaned up. Breathless, she could hardly contain her excitement until Stan made to put a hand on her shoulder, steadying her vibrating body.

“Well, before we get too excited about this whole dating scenario, let’s get the important stuff out of the way.” He looked over at Dipper, who straightened as the attention shifted over to him. “Dipper, my boy, remember the plan?”

“Yes, of course! You guys are going out of town with Mabel because you needed to get some things switched over with her orthodontist, so that she could be moved to the clinic here in Gravity Falls. And to…” Dipper pulled a sheet out of his vest, reading the colorful addition to the note. “...pick up more rainbow rubber bands, so that Mabel has more color choices.”

Mabel grinned big at that, allowing Stan  to note bemusedly that she had some pink-colored bands on her braces that day, a perfect match to her sweater. “That was my addition. Definitely makes it sound going-out-of-town-for-a-day-worthy.”

“Gotta make it convincing,” Stan said as he nodded approvingly. Dipper shoved the note back into his vest, rolling his eyes as Ford checked his watch.

“Alright. It’s morning here, so it should be evening in the dimension we’re heading to. Hopefully, we shouldn’t be longer than…” Ford trailed off, working on some internal calculations. “...Evening, tomorrow. Soos is aware that we’ll be out, and should be in shortly to watch over you, the house, and the gift shop. Despite you both slipping away from him the _last time_ he watched over you,” - he motioned pointedly at Stan before continuing - “I blame Stanley’s poor planning skills on that, and not Soos himself.”

“Hey!” Stan blurted out incredulously, but Ford simply overlooked the outburst with a smirk as the kids giggled. From his jacket, Ford procured and handed Dipper a small, bright communicator. It was thin, with the screen taking up most of the device. Dipper let out a small “ _woah_ ”, his eyes wide as he started playing with the touch capabilities.

“If anything does come up, don’t hesitate to contact us. It will work across dimensions and we should get the call instantly, despite time differences. I’ve made sure calibrate it for the best possible frequency -- hardly any interference! We’ll have communicators on our end, but if you can’t reach us, just leave a message. It’ll pop up on my glasses, so I’ll know right away.” He tapped his spectacles for emphasis as Dipper nodded furiously, tucking the small communication pad into his vest next to the note.

“Don’t worry Grunkle Ford, you can count on me,” he said, chest puffing out. He then deflated, worry covering his features as he turned to Mabel. “Be careful, okay?”

Mabel waved a hand at him, scoffing loudly. “Bro, you worry too much. Besides, like our grunkles would let anything happen to me. I’ll be fine!”

Stan nodded and flashed Dipper a grin. “And if not, well, I hope they have a face so I can punch it in!” He brought a hand up and threw his fist into it, while Mabel giggled and Ford rolled his eyes.

“Well, we best be off.” He knelt down,  giving the boy’s shoulder a squeeze. “Dipper, I have every confidence that you’ll take care of everything while we’re gone,” while Dipper positively beamed under the praise. After Ford stepped away Mabel instantly took up his vacancy, throwing herself at her twin in a bone-crushing hug. The wind effectively knocked out of him, he gasped and struggled against the confines of her vice-like grip.

“Mabel, please, you’re choking me--!” He gasped out, prompting her to finally let go.

“We’ll be back before you know it!” She chimed in as he swallowed a precious lungful of air. “But don’t wait up, I know how you get when you decide to stay awake for days at a time.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be fine. You guys have fun, okay?”

“You bet bro bro,” she affirmed, saluting as she headed towards the basement door. “And tell Soos I said hi!”

“I will!” He shouted back, as she disappeared behind the door behind her grunkles. As soon as she was out of Dipper’s line of sight, she paused, took a deep breath, racing to keep up with Stan and Ford. Wrapping each of her hands in one of theirs, her mouth opened and out came the excited questions.

“So where are we going? Are we going to see aliens? Do they have tentacles, or is that a common misconception? Is this dimension like ours, or is it completely different? Do they eat weird food? Speak different languages? Do princesses rule the land or did dolphins rise out of the sea and enslave the human populace and make them do tricks like they do in our Sea Land parks? Or do-”

Stan laughed, cutting her excited babbling off. “Jeez, whatever created the different dimensions should have called you. They’d get a never-ending supply of ideas.”

“Well, since there are an infinite amount of dimensions due to the Theory of Infinitely Created Universes, it’s definitely possible that all those universes exist. Theoretically anyway; if they do exist, Stan and I have never stumbled on them,” Ford added easily. “No, this universe is somewhat different, and one we are very familiar with.”

“Do you go there often?” She asked them as they entered the lab. Ford gently released himself from her hand, going around and gathering items up into his coat. A few jars of honey waited on a table; he swiftly pulled out his portable dimension tear and the jars disappeared in a flash of light. As Ford gathered his things, Stan gave himself the pat-down, making sure every concealed weapon was secure and and in place. Satisfied with the result, he grabbed a shorter brown coat hanging in near their personal lockers, dusting it off carefully before pulling it on and smoothing it out. In contrast to Ford’s long black overcoat, his was cut off around the waist and sported rolled-up, half-length sleeves.

“Honestly, we haven’t visited this dimension in... how long has it been now? 5 years?” Ford asked, absently his body and mind more preoccupied with calibrating his portal gun to the proper coordinates.

“Don’t ask me, I don’t keep ultra-precise documentation of that sort of thing,” Stan shot back, while Mabel just looked between them, excitement barely contained. “But we lived there for a few years. So we know our way around just fine.”

Mabel’s eyes went wide. “Woah, what! You guys _lived_ in a different dimension? Not this one?”

“A few actually,” Ford said with a smile. At this though, Mabel lost some of her enthusiasm. She squinted at each twin in turn, as if sizing them up.

“So how do I know you guys are even from _this_ dimension, hmm? What if this is just another dimension you’re just ‘living in’?” She gasped, her motions going dramatic. “Are you even my actual grunkles? _Did you replace the Stan and Ford here by killing them and assimilating their personalities?!”_

Stan looked taken aback, eyes flicking to Ford, whose face had turned a strange shade between shocked and impressed. After a beat a smile creeped along his face, and he opened a drawer, pulling out a small handheld device. It was about the size of a pen and resembled a thermometer, or perhaps a glucose reader.

“Come here, and I’ll show you something cool,” he said, a hint of mischievousness in his voice. Mabel looked apprehensively at Stan, but when he nodded her on encouragingly, she went over to Ford, more curious than nervous. “Now, hold out your hand.” She did as he commanded, and he took it gently, holding the item up so she could see it.

“Just to warn you, this is going to cause a prick on your finger. It’ll be fast, and hardly hurt at all, but I want you to be aware it might sting a bit, but nothing as bad as getting a shot. Okay?” When she nodded, he put the device down to her finger. She gasped out when a tiny needle pricked her finger, but stared in wonder at the digital readout screen on the device. It was scanning through digits, letters, and even symbols, before settling on a specific sequence. When it was finished, it beeped audibly and Ford drew it away from her hand, a grin plastered on his face.

“Hah, success! Now, what does it read?” He held the device out to her and she took it tentatively. Frowning, she read out the series of code in front of her.

“It says ‘42-D/’,” she said, confused. “I have no idea what that means though. Undeterred, he took the device from her, putting it to his own finger.  

“This device scans dimensions to find the one you’re supposed to reside in; your ‘home dimension’ if you will. You are from this dimension; which is 42-D/. As for my home dimension, well -” a small beep interrupted him, and he handed the device back to her. “See for yourself.”

She read the combination of numbers, letters and symbols. When she was finished, she let out a relieved giggle.

“It’s the same dimension!” He nodded back, smiling. “Whew, and here I was, fearing lizard monsters from Mars, or something.”

“It’s an astute fear to have!” He said, validating her concerns. “In different dimensions, sometimes things are not always what they seem, so having tools like this can be very handy.”

“Yeah, especially if you’re someone like Ford who borders daily on full-blown paranoia,” Stan chimed in, rolling his eyes. “Don’t worry Mabel, your grunks are the genuine artifact. Paranoia and all!”

Mabel’s laughter and Ford’s scoffing was all that was needed to ensure that everyone was back on track, and ready to enter to the dimension that awaited them; C-734.

The feeling of jumping dimensions was one that Stan had memorized years ago; whether it was a new dimension or one they had visited dozens of times, there was always a thrill that ran through Stan at the sight of the swirling blue vortex, waiting for them to enter. Not that Gravity Falls didn’t have it’s own thrills because it sure as hell did, but there was something special about moving to a new place each and every time: the disorienting lurch that was more satisfying than sickening, the wonderful rush of new sensations hitting him all at once. It was better than any drug he had ever experienced and if Stan was true to himself he’d call it what it was -- an addiction of the worst kind, a yearning of feeling that _pull_ when entering another world he didn’t belong to and surviving all the same. All the sweeter that he could have Ford by his side for almost every turn. Laughing, yelling, fighting, loving -- Ford had proven time and again to be the anchor that kept Stan together and stopped him from drowning in an endless sea of new thrills and chills, a forever wanderer of the stars lost to all, even himself.

He had experienced a period in his life close to that feeling of listless wandering, of letting go and fucking it all to the wind. For ten years he had drifted, lost in an ocean of possibilities, though all of them slipped disparagingly through his fingers like water, with nothing to hold onto. It wasn’t a good feeling, but it was one that someone could certainly succumb to, sometimes in the worst ways possible. He had come close to the brink more than once but it had been Ford calling to him in desperation that had kept him tied to some semblance of reality. That cold January night had changed both of their lives forever, and though it certainly didn't seem it at the time, Stan could safely say now that it was a change made for the much, _much_ better.

That thought alone was enough to allow the smile to snake across his face when he watched Mabel’s face light up as they entered the waiting portal and leave Gravity Falls behind. Her smile only grew as they passed into a world that had been for so many years -- _too many_ years -- somewhat of a second home for them.

“Welcome,” Ford said, a hint of nostalgia in his voice. “to Nystrom.”

Mabel's eyes reflected the lights now surrounding her, and her jaw dropped as her breath left her in a soft gasp. They had entered the dimension from a rooftop near downtown, if not smack dab in the middle of it. Like blazing stars surrounding them on all sides, the city shone true as the twin suns of this dimension sunk under this dimension’s horizon. From below, music played, inhabitants chattered, and advertisements displaying hundreds of different products in alien scripts on billboards and screens lining the tall skyscrapers. Lights made the buildings shine in a bright purple light, lined fantastically with yellow. Searching Mabel’s reaction with his one good eye, he put a steadying hand on her shoulder. His touch seemed to break her of any trance she was in, but her eyes still swam with all the excitement around her.

“Ya overwhelmed yet?” He asked, amused by her expression.

“Is...is this what New York City is like?” She asked, breathless. “I feel like this is what New York is like.” Stan let out a soft laugh and steered her body towards Ford, who was waiting and checking his phone over by one of the building ledges. A queue of many other... _inhabitants_ waited along with him, some humans, others not so much. As they weaved through the individuals, Stan kept his grip tight.

“Eh, I’d say it’s more like Tokyo. There are a lot of sections and subsections. Tourists would say this place is very clean- I say it depends on where ya go. And, ah, take care not to stare, wouldja? We gotta look natural.”

Instantly, he felt Mabel shift next to him, her head turning away from where ever she had previously been gazing. Luckily, it wasn't long at all until they gathered themselves next to Ford, who was checking his phone.

“Looks like we got here just in time, and I had plenty of time to grab re-loadable pass cards for all three of us.” He pulled out the clear, digital chit cards, handing one to each them. “There should be enough on them to last us the time we’re here.” Mabel gazed at her, looking at the suspect alien script and the intersecting circuitry just under the surface of the clear, flexible plastic.

“So is this for like, the bus, or something? Or a train?”

“You could say that,” Ford said, but his eyes weren't on her. Instead, he nodded overhead, and they turned to follow his gaze.

Headed towards them was indeed a sort of flying train; the multiple cars joined together to create a sort of airborne caterpillar, with more of a purplish-red hue compared to a caterpillar’s green. Each car appeared to be like an elongated teardrop, fat on one end but tapering to a flexible tip, which connects to the next car. This also creates an interesting tapering effect on the train as a whole; the front cars appeared much larger than the back ones.

“Looks like our ride is here,” Stan said, as a few conductors start herding citizens by size as the train pulled in and hovered near the edge of the rooftop. They were shuffled near the middle cars, with some other humans and a few other species Stan couldn't place his finger on. Grabbing a car for themselves plus a mantid-huminid busy on their handheld, the Pines piled in, finding a seat as everyone settled in.

As soon as the gates closed and they had the space to themselves (plus the bored-looking mantis guy -- at least Stan was mostly sure it was a _guy_ ) , Mabel’s mouth dropped, her eyes huge and sweeping from her Grunkles to the sights soon streaming past her window. Both of them waited expectantly for her to say something, but her tongue was apparently too tied. As the seconds passed, Stan found himself having to suppress his rising giggle.

Thankfully, once she did find her voice, it didn't manifest itself as an ear-splitting scream.

“You guys used to _live here_?!” She finally got out, and Stan couldn’t help it. He threw his head back and let out a hearty laugh, loud enough to make the man-tid clack his his mandibles in annoyance before going back to his handheld.

“Yes, we did, for quite some time,” Ford supplied, since his twin was still wrapped up in side-splitting giggles. “We’ve taken up partial residency in other dimensions, especially while trying to find our home dimension and while conducting business from our space here.” From his corner, Stan finally found his breath, wiping the moisture from both of his eyes.

“Yeah, and since your bright idea was to set us up with dates and this is the dimension we’re second-most familiar with, Poindexter figured it a good idea to take you here.”

Ford rooted around in his jacket for an object while Mabel posed more questions, one after another. “But how did you guys get here? And why the heck would you ever want to _leave_?”

Stan coughed and Ford’s hand stalled its search. Mabel looked between them expectedly, her smile fading with each pass. Stan shifted in his seat, eye darting to Ford's face momentarily. The second-long awkwardness was so palatable the man-tid even paused, before moving deft claws over buttons and returning to his game.

“Erm, long story short, sweetie, but we got lost between dimensions due to one of Ford's experiments. As for why we left…” he leaned back casually, allowing his arms to rest on the seat behind him, one leg crossed over the other. He gave Ford a steady look.

“You’d have to ask him.”

Sensing a sore spot about to be picked that he didn't want to mess with, Ford fiddled in his jacket again. Eventually his fingers found their intended target - his communicator - but he simply held it in his hand, carefully pulling it out under Mabel’s questioning gaze. He fumbled with the sleek machinery, having a hard time meeting her gaze.

“Well, um, well, _another_ long story cut short, our line of work can be - as you have seen first-hand - can be quite dangerous, and we have a tendency to accrue people who aren't too fond of us, so we ended up leaving so as to avoid any more...mishaps.”

“Mishaps?”

“Mishaps,” he parroted, and Stan could tell he wasn't enjoying this level of questioning. Luckily Mabel, being the astute observer that she was, decided it best to drop it there.

“So where are we going, anyway?” She asked. The topic change allowed Ford to ease a bit, but Stan knew he wasn't out of the awkward woods just yet.

“To one of our older haunts, which is on the other side of the city.” He pulled up a holographic map, to give her a visual. “Nystrom itself is shaped to resemble a star, and each prong represents a different sect. Within each sect, it's broken down into different parts. We’re here, in what’s called the Claudstine -- the inner circle, the busiest section. Now, where we are going is…”

Stan’s attention drifted while Ford explained the different parts of the city to Mabel. It was all old information to him - what was more on his mind was trying to figure out what about the city would be new. It had been more than a few years since they had lived here, which means more than a few places would have changed with the times. He tried to think of what was going on here scientifically and politically, before they last left. It didn't help that his memory of their biggest departure was fuzzy at best. He tried pulling it up, but only got back a strong feeling of pain, of cold, of a lot of people shouting, and a lot of wind. God, why had there been so much wind? He frowned and cursed his powers of recollection. He just knows that he had been hurt, the events passed like a blur, and when he next woke up, he had been back in Gravity Falls, strapped to a bed and staring down a grief-stricken and deathly tired Stanford.

“Okay, got it. Hey grunkle Stan, who should I call for grunkle Ford?”

Stan was pulled out of his thoughts by Mabel’s shining face and Ford’s slightly embarrassed one.

“What the what? Call who for Ford?”

She giggled and Ford just put his face in a hand, head shaking. The tips of his ears had visibly reddened. Stan smirked and turned back to Mabel.

“Well, he picked a few people on the communicator to call to meet you guys for a date. Good thing you weren’t listening, looks like yours will be a surprise! But who should I call for Grunkle Ford? He needs a good date and if you don't pick someone, I _will_.”

Stan just laughed, gently taking the communicator from her small hands and scrolling through the contacts. “Playing hardball, eh? Well, let's see…” he check-marked a few names of people they knew and handed it back to her. “Okay, those should be good. Also, send them messages, don't call, it’ll keep it a secret from both of us.” He lifted his eyepatch and winked his bad eye at her, causing to her squeal out in delight.

“Where should I tell them to meet you?” She asked excitedly, already preparing for messages-in-masse. Stan grinned gleefully and side-eyed Ford. If he wasn't regretting his decision to give Mabel this much power, he certainly would be soon.

“Tell them to meet us at _Mickey’s_ ; I’ll be at the bar, Ford will be waiting at a booth in the back.”

“And me? What about me?”

“Hmmm, that is true,” Ford contemplated, worry crossing his face “I don't know if it’d be wholly safe for a 12-year-old to be out unarmed that side of town-” but Stan was too fast. Out of his back pocket he pulled some small black beads and pressed them into her hand. Mabel grinned down at them while Ford blanched. “ _Really, Stanley_? You couldn't give her a knife or a laser gun, you gotta give her-”

“Smoke bombs!” He ended excitedly, watching her squirm with anticipation. “And not just any smoke bombs, these babies’ll do just near about anything you tell them to do, as long as it doesn't involve manual labor. So, you know, you can have them explode for an easy getaway, or…” his eyebrows wiggled “...you can get _creative_.”

“Wo- _oh-oah_ ,” Mabel said, pocketing the three small black balls carefully. Stan held up a finger, grabbing her attention again.

“Just make sure you ask them _politely_. They can be kind of fickle, and won't do anything they don't want to. Helps to deter theft.”

“You got it, Grunkle Stan, I’ll be the polite-est bomb user they’ve ever had.”

He nodded, grinning. “I don’t have a doubt, sweetheart.”  
  


* * *

 

Mickey’s was busier than usual tonight. It caused Stan’s eyepatch to itch unpleasantly as he nursed his drink, surveying the restaurant from his bar stool perch. He didn't want to feel antsy, but it was hard not to. However, Stanley Pines was always a man of composure. Nobody would see him sweat if he could help it, so he pried his eye from the corner where his brother was ordering himself some water and instead threw his flirtatious swagger towards the bartender instead.

“ _Slythka_?” He asked smoothly, hoping to catch the azure-skinned woman’s attention. Her large gold eyes were alluring, if one could get past her lack of nose and soft tentacles hanging down over her lips. Though she lacked mammaries like Earthen females, her shapely frame and sleeveless top made her look familiar enough even for the humans not used to a face so exotic.

When she continued to not pay attention to him, he wracked his brain, trying a different approach.

“Hmm, English? Español? _Lthikian_? Ah, shit, what's the other popular languages here…”

“It’s Gaborthian, old man,” a voice said behind him. He turned and promptly had to send his eyes upwards before seeing the woman who had addressed him and bursting instantly into laughter.

“Oh my god, I’m going to kill my brother.” He stood up, though it didn't do much; she still towered him by a good five inches. Hand outstretched, he plastered the most genuine grin on his ridiculous face.

“Samus Aran, I’ll be damned. You know, I never would have guessed you would show for something like this. And in civilian clothing, no less.”

The imposing bounty hunter looked around the bar quickly before stiffly settling herself into a chair. Without her power suit, she looked positively out of her element. It was like watching leopard seal on land. Incredibly harmless at a glance - too slow to do damage - but the lethality there and ready to come out whenever it needed to. Quietly, she spoke a few fast Gaborthian words to the bartender before turning her attention back to Stan.

“Stanley Pines. One half of the infamous Dioscuri. What the hell are you doing in this dimension?” Her voice had a steely bite, but not out of malice. Her background had been growing up in an advanced sapient bird culture, which didn't rely so much on outward expression as normal humans. He recalled an acquaintance of Rick’s that had a similar deadpan disposition.

Stan, however, showed himself like an open book. In front of this stiff character, he was practically a fruit-flavored gelatin snack. Smile still well in position, he settled languidly back into his seat, drink in hand.

“Well, here to have a date with ya, of course,” he said, laughter touching every word. It did not, however, touch Samus, who simply replied in the only way she knew how: undramatically and unintentionally threatening. As he listened, he caught a quick glance at the outfit she had managed to pull together - two-layered shirt with three-quarter-length sleeves, jeans, her long blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. Classic.

“If that's supposed to be a joke, it wasn't a very good one, even for you.”

“Do you even possess a sense of humor?”

“Of course. I just know you haven’t needed a date in at least 25 years.”

Stan stares at her for a beat, but she was as inscrutable as ever.

“Unless something has _happened_ that-”

“Would you believe me if I told you I was doing this to appease my 12-year-old great niece?” He amended hastily.

This actually got a choked laugh from her. A small smile rent a crack in her stony exterior. “And here I was thinking something truly terrible had happened, or you were using this as a cover for a bigger scenario.”

“Well we do have some Kleptorpian honey to deliver to a good paying client but-”

“Best not say that too loudly, Pines,” she coolly replied, taking her drink as it was offered to her. “Space Pirates have eyes everywhere, and Kelptorpians tend to be close to those bastards.”

“If I recall, that tends to be _your_ problem, not ours, sweetheart.”

“It truly is sad to see an old timer like yourself hitting on a young thing like me.”

“Shut it, you're at least 40 now.”

“38.”

His curse brought another smile to her lips, which, for all intents and purposes, brought a sense of victory to Stan. Not just anyone could get a bad ass bounty hunter like her to take a joke so in his book, this was a win. _Still got it._

They sat together at the bar for a while after that, just silently drinking. Samus was not a individual of many words, so conversation was best started on her end. Everything else would be met with short, curt responses.

“So. Grandniece. That sounds like a new development,” she started, picking up the lost conversation thread.

Stan took a thoughtful swirl of his glass. The scotch wasn't as strong as he remembered, which was disappointing. “Yeah, real recent. Just a couple of weeks ago, really. Parents dead, so it's up to us to take care of ‘em now.”

“‘Them’?”

“Oh, yeah, crazy shit, but she's got a bloody twin. How about that.”

“Are they going to carry on the business you and your brother have set up for yourselves?”

Stan looked affronted that she would jump to such a conclusion.

“They're just kids, Aran. 12 years old and-”

“I was much younger when I started warrior training, and you and your brother aren't getting any younger.”

“They're kids. They’ll make their own decisions. I ain't pressuring them into anythin’.”

“You have the face of watching a young one show their potential.”

“Well, they are smart, great kids, thrown a shitty lot in life but remain bright and creative and--”

“You misunderstand me,” she said, cutting him off. “They have battled. You have seen it.”

“What?! Its nothing, they don't need to get hurt, make our mistakes-”

“Do not underestimate me, Pines. I may not be good at sharing expressions, but I am plenty fluent in _reading_ them.”

Stan looked at her, squirming under her hawk like gaze. Finally, he relented.

“Yes, _god_ , they -- they got caught up in a Kleptorpian raid. It's where we got the honey for refining. Need to drop it off in the morning. And Lord, Aran, they got potential. They got potential, but I’d hate to see them make the same mistakes.”

“What mistakes?”

“You do realize I'm actually missing an eye, right?”

“Yes, but battle scars are not a mistake and neither is-”

“Grunkle Stan!”

Stan jumped in his chair, surprised to hear Mabel’s above the din of the bar. Sure enough, a tug on his jacket sleeve alerted him to the arrival of his great niece.

“Mabel? What are you- how did you get in here?”

A man yelling about a child escaping into the bar gave him all the information he needed to know.

“Sorry Grunkle Stan, I don't have time to explain but -- ohmygosh, are you _Samus Aran_?” The woman next to Stan blinked owlishly as the girl happily held out her hand, looking like she won the lottery when Samus obliged her invitational greeting. “Yes, two handshakes so far, I am on a ROLL!”

When Samus gave him a look, he just shrugged. “She befriended a man-tid on our way here.” The explanation was cut short, however, as Mabel tugged on his arm once more.

“Alright shortstop, what’s going on?”

“Grunkle Stan, as much as I hate breaking up your date tonight, I need to let you know that me and Grunkle Ford need to head home right now!”

Stan's eyes furrowed as a million-and-one emergency scenarios ran through his head. “What? Why?”

“Oh, Ford _is_ here,” Samus quipped thoughtfully to herself.

“Yeah but we gotta run home because the social workers are on their way and it shouldn't take long we just gotta stall them so we should be back soon but Ford didn't have his portal gun so I need yours okay I'm gonna leave before you process this sentence byeee!”

And in a flurry, she ran back out the door, dodging the bouncers trying to grab ahold of her as she fled the scene. Stan, indeed still processing what just happened, reflexively moved to pat his side only to find that -

“Damn, she really did snipe my portal gun,” he said. The hint of affection in his tone was not lost on Samus, as she nodded thoughtfully, taking a drink.

“Potential.”

It wasn't five minutes later though that their evening chat was interrupted once again. While Stan figured it would be the return of Mabel, he was instead surprised to see a much more familiar (but wholly unexpected) face.

Stanford’s.

“Oh, hey, you're back, where’s--”

“Ms Aran I apologize for the interruption but - we have to go. _Now_.”

If Ford was ever bordering on irate, now would be that moment. His face was livid in a way Stan hadn't seen in a long time, and his own face hardened in response.

“Why, what happened, what's wrong?”

“Are you _really_ that daft right now, Stanley?! She took home Ford -- _and that Ford wasn't me!”_

The world around Stan slowed to a crawl. Sounds were muffled, far away. He took a final swig of his drink; it tasted ashen in his mouth. He turned to face Samus, her face unreadable but her body tense. And yet, somehow, amongst this crazy declaration, he could still manage out a chuckle while his brother stood by in horror.

“What was that thing you were saying about _potential,_ again?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cameo from Samus Aran, from the Metroid series! 
> 
> Also a Rick Sanchez (and Birdperson) reference. I hope to do more cameos, if I can ever sneak them in. C:


End file.
